Remain in the Light of the Stars
by Chaotic Century
Summary: "Do you think he's forgotten us?" Willow, stranded in a desert ruin, fights to maintain her faith in Dan in the face of overwhelming loneliness and despair. Her solitude is complete until one starry night, when she and Zeke encounter a mysterious stranger in the desert. Second in the Earthling trilogy; Battle Story/Chaotic Century timeline.
1. ZAC 2060: Year 1 - Prologue

**Author's Note:** It is strongly recommended to read the first story in this trilogy, "Earthling," first. This story picks up almost immediately where "Earthling" left off. Reviews are always profoundly appreciated, and often responded to!

 **DEDICATION  
** _For jdoug4118  
_ _Your final review of "Earthling" gave me exactly the creative spark I needed to write this sequel. Thank you for the inspiration! I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I did writing it._

* * *

 **ZAC 2060: YEAR ONE  
** _ **Prologue**_

His company was more essential to her in those early days than she had ever thought possible.

Daytime was preferable to the night. Sunlight and a bright blue layer of atmosphere shielded her sad eyes from the unknowable black depths of space. The waking hours brought with them their own set of problems, however: without sleep to pass the time, the hours dragged interminably. There simply wasn't enough to do. And so she relied on her sole companion, and in the beginning, they spent many a hot afternoon walking up and down the main thoroughfare in town. It ran the entire length of the little ruined settlement that had been unofficially named Fort Zephyr, opening onto empty desert on either end, and was one of the only streets that could accommodate them both, side by side.

He took one small, glacially slow, plodding step for every thirty of hers. But he never rushed ahead, never pushed the pace; he simply and uncomplainingly trod that dusty ground right along with her, back and forth, hour after hour after hour.

He was a great listener. In their first days of solitude, she said very little, but the heavy silence into which her entire world had been so recently distilled proved itself nearly unbearable, and so she began to talk, just to hear another voice besides the one in her head. She spoke only to herself at first, as she dragged wearily through the unforgiving stretch of everlasting days, and then to him, when it dawned on her that he was paying attention to, and actually understanding, what she said.

The nighttime was always the hardest. Although he lay patiently right outside her door when she turned in, and faithfully remained there until she reemerged in the morning, she nevertheless felt the loneliness pressing in on all sides as though it possessed both matter and form. As each fading dusk fell and then made way for night, the vast unfathomable void of outer space opened up above, reaching boundlessly away into a crushing emptiness. Zi's pair of moons cast an eerie luminescence on hollow, half-shelled structures below, and darkness seemed to snuff out every last glimmer of hope in the world. Sad winds moaned around corners and ghosts shuffled lonely through vacant streets.

She hated the night, the deep sky a painful reminder of all that had come before, the winking stars mocking all that she had lost. In her little hut in an abandoned village somewhere in the southern Elemia desert, she lay curled miserably on a straw-stuffed mattress, buried under blankets, preferring the darkness of tightly-shut eyes over that which oppressively converged upon her if she dared open them.

The pair reached now the northern end of the long thoroughfare, where the sand-burned remains of a former army barracks were just barely visible in the distance beyond low rolling hills of sand. Instead of turning around along with her as he usually did, he sat down on his haunches and gazed forlornly out into the desert. She stopped and went over to him, leaning against his great paw. "I miss him too, Zeke," she whispered. The wind sighed around them and gave them no comfort.

That night, like all nights since she had been left behind in this bleak settlement, Willow sobbed into her pillow until, exhausted, she fell into the uneasy twilight of sleep.


	2. ZAC 2060: Year 1 - Chapter 1

**ZAC 2060: YEAR ONE**  
 _ **Chapter 1**_

Days and weeks bled into one another and vanished without so much as a wisp of memory left behind, like water spilled onto dry earth. Filling each day with useful or stimulating tasks was a struggle, yet she endeavored to try nevertheless. Her small, simple hut was almost painfully clean, and Zeke's white metal panels were rubbed and polished to gleaming until constant desert winds swiftly dusted him over again. Willow made these efforts not solely to help herself pass the time, but because of an awareness of a truth that she dared not confront directly.

Although she had witnessed only the violent, immediate aftermath, Willow knew what had really happened on the bridge of the _Globally 11_ that day, many months ago now, that it had crashed down on Planet Zi. The governing Council, cycling through members as the generations passed by one by one, had done their utmost to conceal some of the more unsavory side effects of decades-long space travel. Even on a ship the size of the _Globally_ , however, news traveled quickly among a cloistered population, and suspicious deaths were more easily explained when one looked beyond the official line. Although her heavily-censored books would bear no mention of it, and few colonists had breathed word of it directly no matter how trusted the confidante, she knew what it was and she knew its name: mental illness.

The human brain could only withstand so much of any one thing - solitude, sameness, sadness, hopelessness - before something went wrong, some organic circuitry splintered dangerously awry. She knew it could manifest in ways ranging from malaise to hallucinations to crippling fear to crushing depression, and every shade in between. The _Globally_ 's Sentinel had suffered from mental illness when he murdered Cole and the ship's Pilot, leaving no one left aboard who knew how to perform the complicated landing procedures. No one of sound mind would have done such a thing.

And here she was, alone in a sand-beaten settlement in the middle of a vast wasteland, devoid of both human connection and purpose, and with only an enormous mechanical wolf for company. Zeke had already become a friend in their short time together, but he could not speak, could not hold her when she felt afraid, could not answer her tears with a soft kiss on her forehead.

Willow understood instinctively the frailty of her simple brain in circumstances such as these, and remained vigilant for unnatural changes, should voices call to her or mirages appear. She needed activity and enrichment as part of her life in order to stave off a mental decline. And so, she cleaned her cottage, and read her censored books, and talked to the only company she had, and the days passed slowly by.

-.-.-.-

Earth years were calculated by how long it took that faraway planet to make a complete revolution around its sun: 365.25 days. Willow did not know how long it took Planet Zi to circle around its own sun, and so she tracked the passing of time in the tradition of her ancestors. A little house very near to hers contained, she discovered after nosing in one afternoon, a good deal of leftover ash in its cold fireplace. At sunrise each day, she bade good morning to her large lupine friend awaiting her outside, walked to the nearby house, and blackened one fingertip with ash. She then made a small, deliberate tick marking on the wall to indicate the start of another day, and as time marched onwards, the ranks of markings swelled.

One day, when she had just completed another lengthy row, countless little soldiers marching grimly across the wall, a strange sound met her ears. Sounds in Fort Zephyr were all so utterly similar after awhile - the wind, Zeke's soft growls and whirring gears, her own voice - that this faint, distant noise against such a homogenous soundscape was as stark as a thunderclap. She brushed her hands impatiently against one another to wipe the ash off her finger and hurried outside of her "counting house." The droning sound had grown marginally louder and clearer.

Zeke, lying obligingly nearby, had noticed it as well. She looked at him and saw that, having determined the source of the sound, he was now alert and looking upward. She looked up, too.

Barely visible in the blinding blue was a tiny pinprick. No larger from her vantage point than an ant, the pinprick made its way slowly across the sky. As it approached her zenith, its buzzing sound grew still louder, and Willow at last recognized it for what it was: exhaust, engines, machine parts. A flying Zoid.

The Zoid maintained its straight trajectory, flying overhead and past them, off into the distance until it was no longer discernible in the haze of Zi's atmosphere. Willow walked over to Zeke. "I didn't know there were flying types." Zeke looked gravely at her, and he couldn't have been plainer if he'd spoken aloud. "I know," she said. "I really liked having you right outside my door, but I'm not sure that's such a good idea anymore." Her eyes scanned the town's humble skyline, such as it was, searching out larger buildings. "Let's look around for a good spot for you."

They walked down the wide thoroughfare together. Willow wanted a place that was as close as possible to her hut, but as she poked her head into one building after another, it became apparent that there were not many to choose from which would have both room for Zeke to be comfortable, as well as easy ingress and egress.

They finally settled on what was obviously a former hangar or storage facility, although it unfortunately was almost directly across town from the position of her home. "I can run pretty fast," she informed him, although this reassurance was almost as much for her own sake as his, "and I can get here very quickly if I need to. And you'll come get me if you need help, right? Or you can call? I know how loud you can howl." She smiled up at him, and he seemed to be giving her a toothy, encouraging smile back. "Take it easy here for today, buddy," she said. "You must be bored senseless following me around all the time anyway, and - and I was thinking I might try to find more books to read besides the ones from my ship." Zeke settled down on his tummy. "I know it's in a language I don't understand," she said, feeling foolish already yet nevertheless determined to try. "But maybe if I study it long enough and there are pictures, I can eventually make sense of it." She trailed off. "Oh, I'm just being silly, aren't I? I guess it doesn't make any difference, anyway." Zeke was looking at her. "Please forgive me," she murmured. "For all of this."

Willow slowly exited the hangar, fighting the urge to look back every step of the way. She knew she would be overcome with sorrow if she did.

She looked in the house next door and found a set of iron cookware that would make a useful backup should anything happen to her current set. In the house next to that, mangy blankets topping three beds would make perfect scraps with which to patch her clothes when they wore through, although, she recalled with chagrin, her sewing skills were in need of some polish. The house next to that one, however, took her breath away when she entered its small back room.

Six floor to ceiling bookcases greeted her shining eyes, each stuffed to the brim with countless disorganized tomes. She eagerly pulled out one volume after another, discovering quite a number that had pictures; many among these were children's picture books, which tempted with their decipherable, linear stories. The gothic blackletter text - recognizable to her in form though not in arrangement - suddenly seemed far less intimidating. She settled onto a cushion in the corner with an enormous pile of books at her side, a lightness floating in her chest that she had not felt in quite some time.

-.-.-.-

It wasn't until daylight faded, making it difficult to pore over the text and illustrations of the picture book that she was attempting to decode, that she realized how long she had been ensconced in her makeshift nook. She jumped up with a start, threw the book down, and ran down the block a short distance, back to Zeke's hangar.

He was right where she'd left him, resting with his chin on his paws. She couldn't tell if he looked relaxed or just melancholy. "Zeke," she said, walking over to him. He picked his head up and regarded her, listening. "I wanted to come say good night." She took a deep breath. "And, I'm going to miss you tonight. It's...it's going to be lonely, you know, without you outside my front door. And I already feel so lonely as it is." Tears welled hot in her eyes. It had been years since her mother had stroked her hair back off of forehead in order to plant a kiss there, something she had always done whenever Willow cried. She closed her eyes, remembering, trying to call back from the past every last detail of how Hen's love had felt.

Something cold and unyielding lightly touching her forehead startled her back into opening her eyes. Zeke was leaning down, touching the tip of his snout against her head as gently as could be. He whined softly, a nakedly sympathetic sound, because tears were falling down his pilot's face and he didn't know what else he could do.

Every part of Zeke was too enormous to put her arms around, and his metallic body wasn't very warm either, but Willow nevertheless pressed her face and arms against his muzzle, hugging him in the only way she knew how. "Thank you, Zeke," she whispered. "You are a true friend." She wiped her eyes and stroked the shiny white panel of his upper jaw, petting him. "I'll try to be brave tonight. For you."

He gave her a warbly little woof and lay his chin back down on his paws with a sigh.

"Good night, Zeke," she whispered, blowing him a kiss.

Outside the hangar, she looked up and gasped in dismay, for night was rapidly falling: the moons hung low, and already the cursed stars were visible, twinkling and surely muttering among themselves about their fallen mortal sister below. Willow's fear rooted her to the spot. The night wasn't so much falling as leaking poisonous, seeping down invisible walls from on high to down below, where it could suffocate her in the crushing blackness of loss and sadness. She covered her eyes with her hands, crouching down into a fetal position, utterly paralyzed. Zeke may as well have been on the other side of the planet; it was her all alone, and all of the stars above arrayed against her. She shook her head over and over, refusing to look, trying to curl herself smaller and smaller.

Harsh laughter reached her ears.

She shrieked in anguish and was finally impelled to move. She leapt to her feet, and, in some instinctual flight response to the torture of the sounds she now heard, took off, running as fast as her feet could carry her towards her hut and the salvation of the primitive lamp inside it. She flew past darkened, tumbledown edifices large and small, all alarmingly alike in the dusk. What if she couldn't find her home? What if there were no oil left in the lamp? What if the darkness came and - and -

These worries were interrupted when she tripped in a small shell crater that had been invisible in the shadow of a nearby building. Pain registered immediately on scraped palms and knees, but she scrambled to her feet again anyway, gasping, and took off once more. The lonely wind followed close as she ran, catching the tears that fell from her eyes. The moons, impossibly large and ominous, leaned in no matter which direction she turned, refusing to be left behind. She tore blindly through alleyways and small yards and side streets until the space around her suddenly opened up, and she knew she had somehow reached the main thoroughfare. She and Zeke had walked it so many times that even in the faded light she knew which way to go, and a final wild dash brought her through her front door, which she swiftly slammed behind her against the moons and stars pressing down from above. Somehow, this little cottage, humbled by its aged wooden beams and simple thatched roof, was strong enough to hold up the entire night sky, when her will and courage alone could not.

Shaking fingers illuminated the lamp, and it burned cheerfully on its little table in the center of the room. Willow collapsed onto her bed, panting for air. Blinded with tears and nearly maddened with despair, she cried out into the emptiness. No one heard nor answered her, save the wind.

Everyone was dead. Or gone. Or dead and gone. Never coming back.

Hands clawing uselessly at her bedclothes, body curled up as tightly as she could manage, she shrieked and sobbed with a pain so raw that it was a wonder it could all be contained inside such a little wisp of a person.

Zeke was far away, and she was all alone in a desert on a planet that was not home. She had been born among the stars but then fallen, down, down, down, and she couldn't go back anymore.

They laughed their cruel, shimmering laughs from high above, calling her to come back to her birthright, their shared celestial holy land, when they already knew full well that she was a terrene creature now, exiled, land-bound forevermore.

Willow kept screaming until her voice failed her and her body could endure nothing further. "Zeke?" she cried hoarsely as sleep stole over her. Her parched throat and lips could scarcely form words. "Dan?"

The sound of soft footfalls, whirring gears, and wicked laughter filled her ears as she succumbed to exhaustion and the hollowness inside.

-.-.-.-

When she opened her door the next morning, blinding sunshine was illuminating white metal bodywork.

Zeke picked his head up and woofed softly in greeting, and Willow knew then that he had been there all night. She ran to him, put her arms as far around his left foreleg as could be reached, and hugged him with everything she had. The playful little growl he gave in response sounded remarkably like a happy purr.

"Thank you," she whispered.


	3. ZAC 2060: Year 1 - Chapter 2

**ZAC 2060: YEAR ONE  
 _Chapter 2_  
**

Willow kept herself astonishingly busy over the next weeks. She cared for Zeke as though he were her child, spending each morning tending to his every maintenance and cleanliness need. For his part, he seemed to relish all of the extra attention, grinning toothily as she polished his panels or dove into his programming to optimize his performance capabilities. She did long to take him out into the desert to stretch his legs after months of being cooped up in this little town, but her courage wavered. She did not want a flying Zoid to spot them.

When her maintenance work was done for the day, she explored every last corner of Fort Zephyr. She vowed to never again be lost in her own town, no matter the circumstances, and took it upon herself to memorize the positioning and orientation of every building, every street, every path, as seen from every direction. When walking to and from her various destinations each day, she set herself various challenges: if at the house with the broken pump in the yard, what turns should be taken to arrive at her food pantry? If at the Lake of Shining Waters - which, in a fit of sentimentality after rereading _Anne of Green Gables_ , was what she had named her spring-fed water source in the atrium across the street from her cottage - how could she reach the abandoned farm fields? Her keen mind swiftly arrayed the information she took in on her rambles, and created a mental map of the entire village.

She inspected many of the houses, too, as she familiarized herself with her domain. Like those near Zeke's hangar, she found useful supplies in almost all of them; whatever had driven the former occupants from this place had obviously been a grave threat, as the inhabitants had taken only the most critical of necessities with them. She found blankets, clothing and shoes, and various types of food (which, even if shelf-stable, she didn't care to try since she didn't know how long they had been there).

Her most exciting discovery so far, though, second only to the books, was found one day in a little hut at the opposite end of the thoroughfare to hers, right beside the desert. Whomever had lived here had been an avid gardener, and Willow was so thrilled to spot a cache of plant seeds, pots, and soil on a work counter in the back of the room that she stumbled on an overturned chair in her haste to reach it, falling against a sharp corner of the hearth and cutting her shin wide open. She grabbed a nearby dish rag, figuring any germs that it had once harbored had to have long since died by now, bound it around her leg to stanch the bleeding, then rushed over to the seeds.

They were not identified nor labeled in any way, but she knew she was going to try growing them just the same. Maybe they would be beautiful flowers, blooming against the odds in a harsh desert climate. Or maybe they would yield some kind of fresh food; there had been a working farm here once, after all: Dan had said so. She thought of her older sister Fern - Hen had named all of her children after Earth trees and plants - who had spent many happy hours in the greenhouses, helping to tend to the produce grown there as an apprentice Farmer. When Willow left the little gardener's house that day, heading back to her own with a soil-filled pot and some seeds for a windowsill, she smiled to herself. She would call that particular hut "Fern's house."

Her decoding of the Zoidian language, meanwhile, as presented in her growing library of native books, continued apace. Dan had never told her how long ago he thought Fort Zephyr had been abandoned by its previous occupants, but she assumed that their written language could not have changed too much between then and now. Her afternoons were spent seated on a cushion, her back propped up against Zeke's leg or paw, depending on how he felt like resting that day, utterly absorbed in her learning. Several children's board books, printed on sturdy pages and featuring one word and corresponding picture per spread, helped her learn a great number of simple nouns and verbs, and although she had no idea how the words were pronounced, she was soon able to recognize them on sight when they occurred in other texts.

She had to guess at what she believed to be prepositions and pronouns, but the stories in a few picture books began to reveal themselves to her beyond what the illustrations were able to convey. Despite the plodding pace of the work, she couldn't imagine any archaeologist or biologist being more electrified by the thrill of such discoveries than she was by her dawning comprehension of these foreign words.

After that last difficult night, she always made sure to hasten back to her cottage well before sundown. She did not call for Zeke again, and he remained obediently in his hangar overnight, well-shielded from any airborne spies that might have been patrolling nearby. She passed the short evenings before turning in by throwing herself into a memoir project, writing everything she could remember about her ship and her previous life as a colonist aboard it. Perched at the little table in the middle of the room, her faithful lamp keeping the darkness at bay, she spilled years of memories onto paper, including every last detail she could recall, no matter how minor. Ironically, she found that mentally delving into and dwelling upon her past to this degree helped her to overcome the feelings of having lost everything. She would never lay eyes on her mother and siblings and friends and even Cole ever again, but they nevertheless remained steadfastly with her, stronger than ever in the "eyes" of her mind. Each night she called back everything she had of these people, marshaling the unruly thoughts - the snatches of conversation, the facial expressions, the embraces, the stories shared - into orderly prose on her empty pages.

Those pages filled and filled, and Willow became so absorbed in her work some nights that she needed a bit of time to mentally and emotionally return to the present when finished with her writing for the evening. Sometimes the lamp, or the wind moaning ceaselessly around the eaves, were a surprise as she came back from her reveries. She occasionally wondered if it were healthy to inhabit the past to such a degree as she was now doing, but then she remembered that she had heard no more cruel laughter since that night. And so the memories endured, becoming more tangible every day, so close and immediate she thought she could perhaps turn her head and see Hen standing there, smiling at her. Willow gladly let in the places and times and people gone by, and as the ghosts kept her company and the heavens wheeled by overhead, she felt comforted to be, once more, among friends.

-.-.-.-

Twilight was falling over Fort Zephyr as Willow walked home from Zeke's hangar early one evening. She hummed idly to herself, imagining new, complicated routes by which she might make her travels the next day. The more she learned about this place, the more there was for her to do. She wanted to clean the other houses, repair the broken objects she found, make this place less a melancholy container for its previous inhabitants' memories, and more a comfortable home.

Arriving at the southern end of the main street, she did a double take when a brand-new sight met her eyes. There, in the desert just beyond the town's boundaries, were five Zoids. She stared, so thoroughly amazed by this development that she was quite incapable of comprehending what their sudden arrival might mean. One resembled an Earth creature called a snail, with two large wheeled platforms unhitched just behind it. Two were Molgas, a caterpillar type she had encountered in an unplanned battle when training with Dan many months ago, and the final two appeared to be small gray bipedal dinosaurs.

Compounding her shock, she noticed, a few seconds later, that Fern's house was aglow from within. There were people inside! Deep, gritty voices speaking strange words floated along the wind to her, and when they reached her ears, goosebumps pricked at her arms. With nothing more than instinct to go on, she was firmly convinced that these interlopers were not friendly, and so she decided to hide for a time until she could decide what to do.

A hoarse yell to her right startled her out of these contemplations. A bald, short, but well-built man with a black facial marking down the center of his nose was standing there in the road, staring at her. In his arms, she recognized dozens of cans of food. _Her_ food! She was so angry at such flagrant thievery that it took her a moment to nevertheless realize that she ought to run, but run she soon did. The man yelled again and took off after her with surprising speed, having dropped all the cans he was carrying. She hadn't gotten far when his fist closed around a chunk of her hair, jerking her backwards. She remained on her feet however, and spun to face her attacker, striking out at his face and thick neck, clawing at his ears and eyes with a desperation she had never before utilized. Not having had occasion to learn even basic concepts of self-defense aboard the _Globally_ , she did not know what else to do. These attacks were effectual for only the split second it took for the man to recover from his surprise at the spirit with which his prey was able to fight, despite her being far smaller than he was. He soon swatted her arms away like so many bothersome insects, however, and gave a guttural laugh at her helplessness, as her hair was still gripped in his hand. She stared at him with wide, terrified eyes, then grabbed her hair too, wrenched it from his grasp, and turned to take flight.

With impressive reflexes he reacted, and before she had gotten even two steps away, he was clenching her upper arm in a vice-like grip from which she couldn't wriggle out. She shrieked in terror, flailing and thrashing and kicking desperately, but he pulled her towards him so hard he nearly dislocated her shoulder, and she lost her balance.

Where was Zeke?

Didn't he hear her?

But then, what would he do if he came? He would be one against five and would have no pilot to guide him, and in the ensuing battle, her only friend, not to mention her sole means of defense, would surely be destroyed. She could not endure a life here completely alone. Whatever they wished to do to her would not be as bad as losing Zeke.

Willow stopped fighting as the man, clamping both her wrists together over her head, dragged her across the boulevard towards Fern's house and whatever unknown horrors awaited her within. "Please," she gasped, using the Common Tongue as a test. "I'll give you whatever food I have, just please don't hurt me."

The man barked something unintelligible at her, and she knew now that he did not speak her language. She heard a door opening behind her and the startled silence beyond, and knew that now was her last chance. She took a deep breath, and screamed with all her might: "ZEKE! DON'T COME!"

She was pulled violently over the threshold, shoulders straining painfully in their sockets, and the door slammed shut behind her.


	4. ZAC 2060: Year 1 - Chapter 3

**ZAC 2060: YEAR ONE  
 _Chapter 3_**

Willow knew better than to resist when she was so badly outnumbered.

They surrounded her, immobilizing her arms in calloused palms, running rough fingers through her tangled hair, muttering and laughing greedily among themselves. The tallest of the six men, apparently their leader, said something to her, commanded her to do something, but he was speaking a language she did not know. She could feel that her arms, pinned behind her back by two of the other men, were being bound tightly. The tall man repeated the order, his voice harsh, and she shook her head, unable to understand what he wanted. He stretched one hand out and, ever so casually, gripped her throat in his large palm, squeezing just enough that, though still able to breathe, she felt her airways constricting and her breath growing labored. Long seconds passed and he did not relent. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. She could not pull her head away. She could not speak. Her face burned, and still he tightened his grip. Air reached her desperate lungs with difficulty. The room swam and she closed her eyes; the men's mutterings floated uselessly around her.

And then, with a hollow laugh, he let go. She slumped weakly and landed unceremoniously by the hearth. She gasped a deep, shaking inhale and coughed violently for a time, doubled over, her eyes watering. After a few moments, her breathing normalized, and though her throat felt a bit better now, the sensation of the man's cold fingers at her neck lingered. A shudder involuntarily snaked over her shoulders.

For the time being now, it seemed, her presence was being ignored. The men had arranged themselves back at a table in the middle of the large front room. She couldn't understand a word they said, but she assumed, as they talked animatedly amongst themselves, pointed at her, and took repeated swigs from glass bottles they had with them, that they were trying to decide what to do with her.

Panic threatened repeatedly to overcome her, and the adrenaline rush from being nearly strangled to death had not yet fully abated, but she fought with all her might to keep her head clear. She needed her wits about her in order to get out of this situation, especially as time passed and the men became more inebriated. She knew what alcohol was, of course, and what effects it had on the body, even though it had been strictly controlled aboard the _Globally_. It had happened more than once during the ship's long voyage that a Sentinel tasked with guarding the small alcohol supply - which was distributed only on the day that Earth's New Year's Eve was celebrated - had succumbed to boredom, depression, or worse after endless days in space, and begun secretly dipping in to the stash. The official consequences of punishment and the unofficial consequences of societal shame were nothing, Willow had observed, compared to the emotional and physical disturbances accompanying withdrawal. In retrospect, it was astonishing that as many of the colonists had remained of sound mind as they did, when the urge to make it all go away, even if only for awhile, was so omnipresent.

She knew, therefore, that alcohol was a potent drug, and so she waited as they drank and ate, trying to ignore the crackling energy of fear surging through her. Her breath came shallowly, making her feel dizzy, and so she closed her eyes and took a slow inhale to try and settle her nerves.

They finished eating, and Willow cringed at how much of her precious food had so mindlessly gone to waste on these cretins. The bald man who had assaulted her earlier looked at her now, and she glared defiantly back, anger flaring hot in her chest for a moment until she noticed something else. It was the particular way he was looking at her, his glance slithering downward from her face with a naked hunger she knew had nothing to do with food, that made her blood run cold.

Alarm bells rang crazily in her brain.

She could no longer afford to wait until their drink had achieved its most potent effects. She didn't know what this man wanted, but instinct told her she was in worse danger than she had initially thought. Several of the others were now looking at her in the same way as the first. They weren't going to beat her, or kill her - yet. They wanted something else. She didn't know what that something was, but a deep terror stirred inside. She needed to figure out an escape. Fast.

Her wrists were very securely tied; there was no wriggling them out. Although her legs were not bound, she would have to get past the table in order to reach the door, then turn around in order to open it due to the positioning of her hands. She would not have enough time to accomplish all this before they grabbed her again. She looked down at her legs as she thought this, and saw then the fresh scar on her shin. Images flashed through her mind of how she had come to get it, and suddenly she knew what she had to do. But would she be fast enough?

Mercifully, the leader of the bandits pulled a large bottle out from under his chair just then, holding it up tauntingly to the others. They roared their approval and clamored for it, holding their glasses aloft for a pour. Willow, sweating with anxiety now, took this opportunity to shift herself to her left half a foot, her bound hands blindly seeking everything within reach, searching, searching, until the sharp corner she had cut herself wide open on that day not so long ago presented itself to her grasping fingers.

As subtly as she could, she began rubbing the rope binding her wrists against the sharp edge, trying to maintain a facial expression that betrayed neither her concentration nor her hope.

One rope, sawed through, slackened.

Another.

A third.

And then suddenly, she felt her wrists freed. She did not move for a moment, ignoring the profound ache in her shoulder joints, and watched the bandits carefully. Slowly, slowly, she shifted her weight forward so that she would be able to stand more quickly.

The bald man tipped his head back for a liberal swig, and it was then that Willow sprang to her feet and sprinted for the door. The bandits all shouted in startlement and stood hurriedly too, clumsily knocking their chairs over. Willow swung the door open so hard one of its old hinges gave way, and she darted into the darkness beyond without a single thought being spared for her fears of the night sky overhead.

Angry cries came close at her heels, but she, unlike the intruders, knew just where to go and what to do. The night, too long an enemy, was now a friend, faithfully blending her into shadow as she slipped further away from her pursuers. She accepted this cloaking of darkness with gratitude; it did not smother her now, but protected her from those who would do her harm. Even as the bandits spread out, shouting orders to one another, undoubtedly in hopes of cutting her off or surrounding her, she remained melted into, became one with, the night's shadows. One bandit even staggered past where she hid at one point, utterly unaware of her motionless presence. When he moved on, she did too: she knew where she had to go, and her only chance of survival was to utilize her element of surprise. With a hard-won sureness of direction, she took as many unexpected turns through side yards and dim alleys as possible, leaving the bandits further and further behind as she wended her circuitous way to Zeke's hangar.

When its tall roof became visible, her heart leapt. Almost there! Her breath came in ragged gasps from the distance she had come, but once she arrived at her destination, she knew her odds had just improved significantly. The bandits had no idea that she had a Zoid, too.

Zeke was inside, crouching and obviously alert to what had been going on. The moment Willow's outline appeared in the large doorway, he lowered his head and swung the canopy glass upwards, inviting her into the sanctuary of the cockpit. She gratefully and breathlessly obliged, strapping herself in to the pilot's seat as the glass lowered once more, sealing her in to safety at last. "I'm okay, Zeke," she said shakily. "I'm okay." She raised his head up to the level of the narrow windows near the ceiling and looked outside, assessing the terrain and positions of the Zoids distantly visible on the southern end of the fort. She was going to have only one chance to pull this off before they regrouped, so she had to make it count.

"Quiet as you can, Zeke," she whispered, even though there was no chance any of the bandits would have been able to hear her from wherever they were. "Just as quiet as you can."

She gently nudged the steering column forward, and with astonishingly little noise, Zeke slunk out of the hangar, out into the desert on Fort Zephyr's eastern side, and then around the southeast corner until the bandits' Zoids came into view. He crouched down low, and Willow, her palms sweating, carefully locked on to the first gray dinosaur.

She squeezed the trigger and Zeke fired his double beam cannon, crippling the Zoid's leg. She did not even wait to see the outcome of her first shot, however, and instead locked on to the second dinosaur. Another shot fired, and the dinosaur buckled forward, collapsing face-first into the sand.

The bandits, unfortunately, had been closer to their Zoids than she'd accounted for. She saw the tiny figures scrambling towards their machines, desperate to mount a counterattack against this unexpected enemy. She got one more shot off, disabling one of the Molgas, before the remaining two Zoids whirred to life. "Alright, Zeke, let's get 'em!" she yelled. Zeke roared lustily, glad to be done with this slow-paced sniping mission, and bounded towards them.

She focused on the second Molga first. In her haste, Willow's shots missed their target, but thankfully Zeke's speed made up for the poor marksmanship. He charged the Molga, slashed its side with his claws, then leapt sideways and momentarily out of range of the rotating turret mounted on its back. "Now!" Willow yelled, pressing him forward. Zeke bit into the Molga's tail, and Willow braced herself for the violent head toss that sent the caterpillar Zoid rolling away like a log.

There was not a moment to recover, however, for both the snail and the first dinosaur, the latter tilted dangerously sideways and upright only because of its long tail that it was using as a prop, were firing upon her. She ran Zeke away in a zigzag pattern to avoid their shells then circled him back around, firing repeatedly on the snail. However, although numerous shots connected, they barely left a dent. "That's some armor," she breathed. How to neutralize it?

The dinosaur would be an easy score while she tried to figure out how to defeat the snail, she decided, and so she ran right past the shelled Zoid towards the dinosaur, which couldn't even take a step without falling over, much less evade Zeke's hungry fangs. He tore into the creature's hip, exploiting its lack of balance to wrestle it to the ground once and for all. Cockpit monitors confirmed for Willow a command system freeze, and she turned back to the snail, dodging its fire easily since its twin forward cannons, evidently the only weaponry with which it was equipped, were fixed in position and the entire Zoid had to turn around in order to change the trajectory of attack.

Willow used this limitation to her advantage, running up alongside the Zoid where its weapons couldn't reach and slashing at it with Zeke's claws. Like his cannons, however, such attacks were ineffectual and the armor remained unscathed. Willow began to panic. "Zeke, what should we do?!" she cried, shifting him out of the line of fire once again as the snail slowly rotated.

The standard image of Zeke on one of her monitors, besides displaying surface damage at a couple of points, suddenly had a glowing, flashing spot on the canopy. She stared at it. He was trying to tell her something, but what? He growled, needing her to understand. "What, Zeke, what? What do you want me to do?" He growled again, louder. "Headbutt the thing, what?!" She looked away from the monitor and at the Zoid itself, which was again nearly in position to fire. And that was when she noticed: its curved back. She nodded. "Okay, buddy! I've got it now, let's go!"

Zeke, pleased, roared and ran over to the snail's flank once more. At Willow's command, he all but buried his snout into the sand just below its left wheels, then, once his muzzle was far enough underneath the creature, he reared his head upwards with all of the strength he possessed.

The snail's weight was far greater than Willow had anticipated, and Zeke faltered momentarily, but she clenched her hands fiercely on the controls anyway, asking for more. "Come on, buddy! Come on! You can do it!" Zeke snarled under the exertion as he diverted more power into his shoulders and neck, front leg gears whirring furiously to support the added burden. Willow saw the ground falling away inch by excruciating inch below them as he slowly raised his head, straining with everything he had. He growled ferociously, determined to see this through. "Almost there!" Willow yelled. "Come on!" And then, suddenly, the weight slackened as the snail's center of gravity was shifted far enough laterally as to be overcome, and the entire Zoid fell onto its side, which, having an upward slope, did not hold it for long before it flipped fully onto its back, wheels spinning uselessly in the air.

Willow war-whooped. "You did it! Zeke, you are amazing! You're the greatest Zoid who ever lived!"

Zeke, however, was too busy monitoring the developing situation to pay her much mind, let alone respond. His displays presented her with a zoomed-in image of the snail's pilot - the bald man who had grabbed her - looking dazed as he scrambled out of his overturned Zoid's cockpit. In another inset image, the other five were already running pell-mell towards Fort Zephyr.

Willow didn't have time to think. She already knew that if they made it back into her village, she would never be able to smoke them out, never be able to live there peacefully again. Fort Zephyr was all she had left in the world besides Zeke. She was not going to let her safety be taken away a second time.

Without even a moment's indecision, she locked on to the five figures that had nearly reached the wide main street, and pulled the trigger. One well-placed shot was all it took; these were fleshy creatures, not Zoids. A plume of sand flew up from where the two beams connected with the ground, and in that plume she saw, almost as if in slow motion, a leg, an arm, a jacket, a shoe, mangled bodies like she had seen in the wreckage of her ship's crash, all soaring with unnatural grace through the air before landing unceremoniously in the sand with sickening thuds.

The snail's pilot stopped and stared at the carnage, then gaped at Zeke. He held up both his hands, keening desperately in some tongue she didn't understand, obviously pleading for his life. "Zeke?" she whispered, unsure.

It was clear what her lupine partner wanted, however. His monitor display remained zoomed in and focused on the bandit, who looked so small and mortal there, next to his toppled Zoid. Crosshairs glowed on the man's image, stubbornly and exactingly centered on his chest. Willow's upper arm throbbed with the physical memory of where he had gripped her there, and her skin crawled with the recollection of the hungry way he had stared at her body. She still feared him, even as he fell to his knees, hands held high over his head, screaming for mercy.

That fear was all the worse because she didn't know what it was that he would have done to her.

Zeke growled low, encouraging her, and the rumbling vibration of this sound coming through her seat reminded her of something: she wasn't helpless. And she didn't have to be afraid anymore. Dan had seen to that.

"Thank you," she murmured, willing her words wings with which to fly the countless miles across the desert to a small Republican Army base somewhere.

She squeezed the trigger.

-.-.-.-

Willow needed to get out of the cockpit and breathe. Before she even pressed the switch to open the canopy, Zeke did it for her. He lay down and nestled his chin into the sand, easing her exit, and she awkwardly fumbled her way to the ground.

It had been only a little over an Earth year ago, perhaps, that she had taken her first reverent steps off of the _Globally_ and onto this sandy terrain. She stood shakily upon it now, allowing its enormity and deep agelessness to steady her trembling hands and racing heart.

"Zeke," she said dizzily. "I killed people. Six people. I _killed_ them."

Her friend, gazing sympathetically at her, was shining in the bright moonlight. And it hit her just then: it was nighttime, and here she was, out in the desert, nothing but Fort Zephyr's low buildings a short distance away breaking the view of the enormous overturned black bowl of sky above her. The moons were silver tonight, fat crescents hanging like luminous earrings in some unseen ear. Beyond them, countless radiant stars winked and shimmered as they spun slowly by, and Willow found herself overcome by such beauty.

She looked at them for some minutes, admiring their timeless light reaching out to her from millions of years ago, and she wondered if she had ever fully comprehended their splendor before now. Zeke waited patiently for her to be ready. When she was, she turned to him and said quietly, "Let's go."

Just as during their many wordless afternoons spent pacing up and down the wide boulevard, Zeke kept an achingly slow pace so as not to pass her. They walked together back to his hangar, where he settled down for the night. Willow fetched the ratty blankets she had found in a nearby house awhile back, and bedded down beside him, her back up against his great paw. "Good night, Zeke," she whispered drowsily.

Sleep came swiftly, bringing with it a welcome reprieve from all thought, as silence and stillness stole once more over a little abandoned town bathed in starlight.


	5. ZAC 2061: Year 2 - Chapter 1

**ZAC 2061: YEAR TWO  
** _ **Chapter 1**_

"I think that one looks kind of like a horse."

Zeke stared in the southeasterly direction she indicated, but could see no such thing, and furthermore didn't know what a horse was to begin with. He gave a bewildered growl.

"No? You don't see the horse?" Willow slapped her forehead and laughed. "Of course, I forgot. You may not have horses on Zi. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of non-metallic animals around here. Well anyway, look over there, next to the bright twin stars there, and try to imagine what I'm telling you." Zeke whined, but listened carefully nevertheless, gazing in the indicated direction. "A horse is an animal that walks on four legs, just like you, except it has hooves." Zeke whined again. "Don't you know what hooves are?"

They were in the desert just beyond the southern edge of Fort Zephyr's wide thoroughfare. Zeke sat on his haunches and Willow reclined against the front of his paw as they both observed the wide black southern sky above. It had become a favorite ritual of theirs to stargaze before turning in to their respective beds for the night, which were no longer quite so far apart. With some careful and clever demolition, a Zoid-sized space had been opened up in the atrium across the street from Willow's house to allow Zeke to remain close by overnight. She felt more comfortable knowing that her best chance of self-defense could be mobilized within seconds of stepping out her front door.

She felt more comfortable about a lot of things nowadays, and no longer cried herself to sleep each night. The ash marks on the counting house's walls marched ever onwards, swelling in number, but Willow felt as though she had at last scratched out a tolerable existence for herself. In many ways, in fact, it was actually pleasant. She enjoyed the time she spent reading and researching, and nurturing her small but growing garden. Her food stores remained bountiful, thanks to careful rationing, and she was buoyed by the hopes of possible fresh produce to come. Every evening, an hour or so was spent lost in her writing as her mind wandered far through the past: across the desert, beyond Zi's atmosphere. But most of all, she enjoyed time spent in the company of her dear friend. Zeke still couldn't talk to her, and never would, but she learned the myriad other ways he communicated without using words, and so, in their own unique way, they conversed frequently.

The days passed by as smoothly as water, rounding out the rough edges over time, and Willow experienced a strange sort of peace she had never before known. It was the peace that came from simplicity, of humbly going about one's life from a place of stillness and acceptance. This peace came from fearlessness, too, of having one's circumstances under control, of feeling like the author of one's destiny.

In spite of her newfound contentedness, however, a deep ache for all that she had lost remained an undercurrent to her existence that never really left her.

Willow still endured bad dreams some nights. She writhed away from coarse hands that tried to grab her, or chased fruitlessly after Hen, who receded further away just as quickly as dream-Willow could run. She even dreamed of the crash one cold night, experiencing the terrifying plunging sensation of the _Globally_ making the uncontrolled descent to its doom, and she woke up gasping on the floor, for she had fallen out of bed. The worst dreams, though, were the ones about Dan: he did not care about her anymore, something had happened to him, he had died. When the chills of fear from her dreams lingered for too long after waking, she sometimes joined Zeke in the atrium, grateful for the tranquility of the glassy moonlit water and the faithful companionship of her Zoid.

As her dreams repeatedly indicated, then, the only thing missing from this quiet existence was the companionship of another person: Dan. And not just Dan, but all that he represented: love, hope, and the chance for a change, for a life spent a little bit less alone.

"They're slightly different each night, you know," Willow told Zeke now. "The constellations move with the passing of time. It's hard to notice night by night, but nothing remains the same. As with everything else in life," she added thoughtfully. She knew this fact deep in her heart nowadays: no matter how similar things were for her each day, her life was changing, and she herself was changing.

Zeke seemed to enjoy their placid evenings stargazing. She wondered what he was thinking about, what he saw in them tonight. When she herself looked up at them, she saw glittering celestial bodies that, in previous years, the _Globally 11_ had soared past on its way to Zi, utterly ignorant of its terrible fate to come. She saw mile markers of her past, each star harboring some kind of memory of places and times gone by. The night sky was now a thing of holiness and splendor to her, instead of the terrifying void it had once been.

"They're so beautiful tonight," she murmured as the stars winked at her, and Zeke, not tearing his gaze away from the heavens, growled his agreement.

-.-.-.-

In spite of the loneliness, Willow was, overall, content with the simple life she and Zeke shared; however, Fort Zephyr, which she guessed to encompass only a few square miles at the most, felt confining at times. She longed to settle into her pilot's seat and take herself and Zeke somewhere. Anywhere. She had lived on Zi for well over a year now, the only colonist of the _11_ who had survived long enough to do so, but had seen only the most infinitesimal slice of her new planet. The stars sprinkled across the sky reminded her each night of where she had been, and now she hungered more than ever to discover where she was going.

One night, as she and Zeke were relaxing in their usual stargazing spot, she looked thoughtfully up at his great head. He was, as usual, studying the constellations above, no doubt trying to locate the object called a "lion" that she had spotted on the southern horizon several nights previously. For every constellation she pointed out and named above Zi, Willow told him a related story about Earth or one of the colonists she had known aboard the _Globally_. Although she had tried to describe the Earth creature known as a lion as thoroughly as possible, Zeke, it was obvious, had still been having difficulty following.

"Lions are big apex predators, like you, and they're known to be very regal creatures," she had told him. "And then, there was my uncle Leo. One of my mom's brothers. The word 'Leo' comes from the same root as does 'lion' in my native English, and so Uncle Leo used to run his hand through his shoulder-length hair, and say, 'Aren't I just fabulously majestic?' We always laughed so hard." She smiled at the memory.

Zeke had listened to this little anecdote with interest and gazed at her, curiosity evident.

"Uncle Leo died long before the crash," Willow said, sadly now. "Cancer. In retrospect, I'm not sure which kind is worse: the lingering, painful death, or the fast, terrifying one. I was asleep that day that the ship went down. I didn't know what had happened until we had already crashed. But for everyone else, to feel the ship falling...I can't even imagine." She'd gone quiet then, and Zeke had nudged her shoulder gently with his nose, telling her, clear as day: "I'm here."

"Zeke?" she asked him now.

He growled a little question back: Yes?

"What do you say we just...go somewhere? Right now?"

Zeke lay down sphinx-like next to her and cocked his head, inviting further clarification.

"The moons are nearly gone tonight. All we have are the stars. No one will see us. Let's just get out of this old town and run around a bit. What do you think?"

Zeke answered her immediately with the soft whir of his canopy glass rising.

-.-.-.-

The big wolf's stride was a tad awkward and rusty at first, as he had not actually done much more than walk slowly along beside her in over a year, but he quickly fell into a fluid rhythm, as though he'd been born to run and had never stopped. Willow, for her part, felt as at home controlling her Zoid as he tore across the sand as she ever had, and she didn't bother to repress the happy sigh that escaped her lips. "How do you feel, Zeke?"

Zeke tipped his head back slightly to let out a gleeful howl, never even breaking stride.

Willow grinned. "Me too, pal."

They reluctantly headed back after a time, mostly because Willow's eyelids were growing ever heavier. She left most of the steering up to Zeke, and gazed at the twinkling lights above. It occurred to her, then, that those same stars were shining over Dan somewhere, too, wherever he was. Did he look up at them sometimes and think of her?

Did he even think of her at all?

Among the other night terrors that visited her dreams on stealthy wings was the scariest one of them all, one she could not bring herself to face for fear that it were actually true. What if she were only some pointless fragment in Dan's past, never to be revisited? What if he never came back? What if she'd already been forgotten, and was to be marooned in the desert forever?

Back at Fort Zephyr, Zeke put his head down so Willow could exit the cockpit more easily. They walked quietly along the wide street together towards home, each absorbed in their own thoughts.

At the Lake of Shining Waters, Willow stood under the partially broken roof of the atrium, looking at the sky, as Zeke circled a few times and then lay himself comfortably down. Her eyes searched the endless black depths above. "Do you think he's forgotten us?"

Zeke growled softly as all but his integral systems shut down for the night. He had no answers.

-.-.-.-

The cold desert nights belonged to Zeke, Willow, and the ghosts of her memories. Together, they ran as fast as the ever-present howling wind across a lonely desert, with the sister moons following along. Willow didn't even think about being spotted anymore; she couldn't bring herself to care when the freedom their jaunts afforded was so intoxicating. Velocity itself was addictive, and she wondered if it were possible for Zeke to gallop fast enough to leave all of their loneliness behind. She did not neglect her memoirs, either: as each night passed, her writings piled up higher and higher, and Willow found herself sharing more and more stories not just with her pen and paper, but with Zeke, who was always a good listener. Every night was a run and a new reminiscence beneath the stars. More and more, the stars seemed to her to be faithful guardians, standing sentinel over her past.

One night, Willow took Zeke further than they had ever been from Fort Zephyr: they had traveled northwest for a half hour or so, just gallivanting merrily about. As she slowed him down at last, he kicked his hind legs up and bucked playfully, creating a spray of sand. "Time to head back, friend," she said, laughing. "I don't want to be too tired to pilot you safely."

Zeke evidently couldn't argue with this logic, for he went to turn around. However, before he was able to do so, he gave a sudden, sharp bark of surprise at the same moment that Willow spotted something at the peak of a particularly tall sand dune in the near distance.

The night landscape of their runs had always been a sea of sameness: sand and starlight, shadows and shifting moons. The large, shimmering object atop the hill beyond could not have stood out more against the familiar, homogenous cloak of darkness than if it had been a flaming meteorite.

"Zeke?!" Willow shrieked, leaping him backwards abruptly despite there being no immediate danger and then crouching him low behind a small nearby dune. "What is that?! How did it sneak up on us?!" Her eyes scanned his various monitors frantically. For all his numerous and sophisticated systems knew, there was nothing out there but the usual barren desert.

Zeke seemed just as confused as she was, and fought her on the controls a little bit, wanting to get a better look at the mysterious object. "Wait," she said, sensing his impatience. "Just wait. Good heavens. I need a second here." Her heart was racing dizzyingly. She tilted her head back against the headrest, ears keenly attuned for any warnings of target lock, but each of Zeke's systems registered the status quo: nothing out of the ordinary. It was a struggle to calm down and clear her mind. She took several deep breaths and let the adrenaline dissipate, which took a few moments after a fright like that. "Okay," she said after another exhale. "Okay. Zeke, there was an old saying back on Earth, and I think it applies to us now: 'discretion is the better part of valor.' I have no idea what that thing is, but it's probably trouble."

He shifted, irritated, and growled his disagreement. He was probably angry at himself for having been taken by surprise like that, she realized. "Something must be wrong with your scanners, buddy. It's okay. We can take a look at them later. But for now, let's think, and figure out what we want to do."

Zeke clearly wished to investigate this desert interloper. He let out a small whine.

"Alright, fine," she conceded, "but if it locks on to us, we are running for our lives, do you hear me, mister? I don't care what it is - if it's hostile, we are getting out of here, and you are going to run at speeds you never have before in your life, got it? Whatever it is, I don't want to fight."

Zeke agreed and very, very slowly raised himself up over the dune behind which they were hidden until they just barely had a sightline on the dune ahead. Whatever they had seen was still there, its shimmering lights dancing about slightly, like a clustered group of enormous fireflies, through which the black of the night sky was still visible beyond. The object itself did not appear to be moving at all, however. It had not budged since they'd first spotted it.

"Maybe it's not dangerous?" Willow said uncertainly, more wishing than believing this. "Wouldn't it have attacked by now if it were hostile?"

Zeke responded by raising himself up slightly higher still. His cameras targeted the object and presented a zoomed-in view to Willow on her cockpit monitors. She stared at it for several long moments, but even with this enhanced perspective, she could see nothing but dancing lights. They seemed to be consistently positioned, arranged like a constellation in the vague form of something, but what, she couldn't tell.

"They're actually kind of beautiful," she murmured to herself. Zeke shifted forward to prop his front legs on the sloping, near side of their dune and straightened up a bit more until his entire head was over their hiding spot, and they both stared, transfixed. There was something strangely soothing about those lights, something that seemed to invite calm and wash away fears. "Maybe...maybe we can very, very carefully go take a look," Willow said, hardly daring believe she could be so incautious, yet meaning every word.

Zeke evidently agreed, because he shifted himself forward again, making a gentle, gradual ascent until he was fully exposed at the top of their dune. The lights remained as they were, sparkling benevolently at them.

"Okay, buddy. Easy now," Willow whispered as she nudged Zeke forward and down the other side of the dune. Such directives were unnecessary, as Zeke already knew to move carefully. He kept his head low out of instinct; this lowered his center of gravity, enabling a faster transition into a full-on sprint in any direction if it came to that, as well as presenting less of a target for incoming fire. He placed his paws gingerly with each step, and with great care they both made their way across the intervening distance. The lights danced closer and closer. Long minutes passed. His monitors and systems remained silent.

Willow halted him at the bottom of the large dune atop which the lights beckoned. "I don't know what it is," she said in wonderment, "but that feeling of - of peace, or something, is even stronger now. Do you feel it too?"

Zeke must have, because, without any input from Willow, he carefully began to ascend the slope. Willow watched the lights like a hawk at first. But they were so soothing. Without even meaning to, she relaxed, her hands dropping away from Zeke's controls, as the great wolf crept up the dune.

They reached the small summit, and stood just a hundred feet or so from the mysterious lights. They seemed like shifting constellations comprised of tiny stars, descended from the heavens to shed their twinkling magic upon their terrestrial mortal friends. Willow searched and searched through their glimmers, seeking out any kind of discernible form or pattern.

And then - so fast she wasn't sure if she had imagined it - the lights revealed themselves for just a moment. A ghostly image loomed: curving planes and smooth metal panels, a swift flash of white and red in the moonlight, something a little bigger than Zeke.

And then it was gone.

"What - what just happened?" Willow gasped, blinking. She hadn't even had time to react. "What was that?" The spectral leftovers of the mirage danced behind her eyelids. Zeke had seen it too; he crouched low, ready to spring away if a threat materialized, but the lights had vanished without a trace.

Willow rubbed her eyes and tried to think. Was she dreaming? Was any part of this night real? Just then, Zeke barked. Sharply. Telling her something. She looked at her monitors. He had zoomed in on something a short distance from his feet. A limp figure: a young man, facedown in the sand.


	6. ZAC 2061: Year 2 - Chapter 2

****ZAC 2061: YEAR TWO  
**** _ **Chapter 2**_

Willow stifled a yelp of surprise. Her wide eyes never left the monitor image of the sprawled, still figure as her right hand frantically hunted around the console, bashing blindly into buttons and knobs until at last finding the canopy switch. She flipped it up immediately, and it raised as Zeke simultaneously lowered his head to the ground. She clambered out and was about to rush to the aid of the figure - a soldier, by the looks of his attire, although not a Republican one if Dan's uniform was anything to go by - when she stopped herself so suddenly that she nearly toppled over.

She turned around and hurried back into the safety of Zeke's shadow, panting. "What if he's alive?" she whispered, so that no one but her Zoid could hear. She swallowed. "What if he tries to hurt me?" She reflexively clutched at her upper arms, and not just because of how cool the desert's restless wind was tonight. She could still feel that vice-like grip, phantom fingers sinking into her triceps like metal cords, the harsh tension on her joints as her shoulders had nearly been pulled from their sockets. She closed her eyes and took a deep inhale. "Zeke," she said quietly. "I don't want to be hurt again."

Zeke certainly understood this, and did not plan on allowing that to happen. He was keeping a close eye on the figure, which, for all he knew, was already dead and therefore no threat, although one could never be sure. This far out in the desert - and they were many miles from any variety of village, army base, or settlement - the odds would have been stacked heavily against any Zoidian's survival. Or any human's, for that matter. He fine-tuned his normally coarse sensors to look for a subtle heat signature and studied the man. To his surprise, they detected body heat, and the measured temperature was dangerously high, at that. He gave a tiny woof. "What is it?" Willow asked, looking up. She stood on one of his forelegs and poked her head into the cockpit, reading the temperature data. She looked back over her shoulder at the man. The many lessons about civics and good morals taught to all young people (and even some adults who apparently needed a refresher) aboard the _Globally 11_ came flooding back to her. Although the lessons had been designed only with achieving communal harmony in mind - an absolute necessity for a society marooned for many decades aboard a spacecraft - they nevertheless had managed to impart a solid sense of ethical values with which few religious or cultural traditions back on Earth could have taken issue. Willow knew full well the difference between right and wrong. Presented as she was now with evidence that this unfortunate man still lived, it was therefore obvious what she ought to do.

A soft groan managed to fight its way through the whistling wind to her ears, and Willow entertained no further doubts nor hesitation. She hurriedly returned to the man and gently turned him over onto his back. Zeke, curious, loomed over her to observe the proceedings.

The soldier appeared to be in his early twenties, and had golden-red hair and a facial marking of a small red semicircle with rays coming out of it above his right eyebrow, but Willow didn't have time to pay attention to any further details than these. His eyes were sunken and glassy, and seemed to look straight through her; his tongue, visible in his open mouth through cracked lips, was covered in a white film. What skin was uncovered and unprotected on his face, neck, and hands was savagely flushed - no doubt badly sunburned - and hot to the touch, though there was no trace of sweat to be found.

"Zeke!" Willow called up to her partner. "We need to get him some help. He's in really bad shape." The problem, of course, was that Willow had no idea how she was going to get this man back to Fort Zephyr. There was no room in the cockpit for any passenger who couldn't hold themselves up, and without the aid of special adaptive equipment, Zeke wasn't designed to carry any cargo other than his pilot and a few basic necessities. Willow looked her Zoid over, thinking. Zeke looked over his shoulder at himself too, also trying to come up with a solution. He shifted his hindquarters slightly, and Willow spotted his tail, its slight upward curve fixed in position. "That's it!" she cried. The tail's lower segment was completely flat, and easily wide enough to accommodate a person. If he held his tail at precisely the right angle, and they maneuvered very carefully over the dunes, it just might work.

"Okay buddy," she said, all business now that she had worked out her plan. "I need you to turn around and get the tip of your tail up as close as you can to us. Dig it into the sand a little so that its top is pretty flat with the rest of the ground." Zeke gave her a small woof of understanding and did as she asked. He sawed his tail back and forth through the sand for a moment to bury it as much as possible, then nudged it near where Willow sat with the stranger.

She stood and pulled the man up by his underarms as gently as she could. He was a tall and muscular person, however, and she was not, and he was furthermore as limp as a rag doll, making her task quite difficult. She stumbled a few times, nearly falling. Zeke whined, wanting to help, and nudged the tip of his tail still closer.

Willow at last managed to drag the soldier onto the tail's lower segment. She practically collapsed right alongside him, exhausted. Throughout the entire proceeding, he had not done anything but groan, tremble, and smack his lips. Sadly, there was no water to give him, and Willow vowed to herself that this was the last time she would do something so stupid as venture out into the desert without emergency supplies. During all of their past night runs, she and Zeke had always stayed so close to Fort Zephyr that it had seemed almost paranoid to bring food and water along - not to mention blankets, simple repair tools, and other necessities. She now saw how foolhardy such an attitude was.

There was a long trip back to contend with now, and they needed to get moving. She had only a very basic education in Healing, as the more advanced (and useful) courses aboard the _Globally_ had been reserved for young people who had displayed an aptitude for both biology and bedside manner, not to mention a resistance to being hopelessly repulsed by blood and gore. As such, Willow knew enough to know that the soldier was in grave danger, but not enough to know what kind of help he most immediately needed.

She flipped a long rope over the man's waist and then had Zeke lift his tail out of the sand just a bit. She tied both ends securely together on the underside of the tail, then stepped back to assess her work. It wasn't pretty, and it certainly wasn't foolproof, but it would have to do. It was at that moment that the soldier attempted to speak.

"Help," he rasped, though it sounded more like "ep." His entire body was trembling uncontrollably.

Willow hurried over to his side and took his uncomfortably warm hand. "Shh, it's okay. I'm going to help you. I'm sorry that this is the best I can manage with my Zoid. He's all I've got. I'm going to bring you back to my village." The soldier smacked his lips again, and made a small, strangled, rasping sound that betrayed just how dry his throat was. One small tear lingered at the corner of his eye. "Don't talk," she told him. "Just lie still. We'll get you some water soon." She squeezed his hand and hurried back to the cockpit, where she strapped herself in. "Listen, Zeke. I need you to keep the lower portion of your tail as close to horizontal as you possibly can. I don't think I'll be able to exercise control over that myself, so I'll need you to step in. You'll probably be carrying your tail funny and it'll feel weird, but it's just how it's gotta be this trip, okay? If we're going downhill, tuck your tail between your legs more. If we're going uphill, raise your tail more. That should keep our passenger roughly level. Do you understand?"

Zeke growled. He sensed his pilot's urgency and was ready to try his best.

"Thank you. We'll keep a slow but steady speed. We need to hurry but it won't help anybody if he gets injured or falls off on the way. Be as smooth as you can." Willow nudged the steering column forward, and Zeke turned for home, the moons and stars watching silently over them all.

-.-.-.-

Willow, Zeke, and their unplanned passenger made the return trip to Fort Zephyr without incident, although it took nearly an hour and a half. She didn't want to imagine the pain and agonies of thirst the soldier must be in. It was well past midnight by now, and between the late hour, the several frights, and dragging the soldier's dead weight, Willow was exhausted almost to incomprehension. Her mind felt dull and sluggish, and it was only Zeke's occasional growls or woofs that kept her alert at all on their way back.

He took them directly to the atrium and the Lake of Shining Waters - no side-by-side strolls down the wide avenue tonight - and backed in, positioning his tail as close as he could to an open area beside the water that was free of debris. Willow ran to her cottage and retrieved extra blankets, a few small cloths, and a tin cup, then hurried back.

She settled the soldier onto a mattress improvised out of several thick blankets, then rolled another one up to serve as a pillow. She touched his forehead; despite the long trip through the cold desert, he still felt very hot. She dipped one of the cloths in the water and brushed it against his forehead, then returned to the spring to fill the cup.

He sat up weakly with her help and she held the cup to his lips, allowing only tiny sips at a time despite his obvious state of extreme thirst. She didn't know if it was safe for him to drink a lot at once, having vaguely recalled reading in a book years ago that people who were suffering from starvation could become ill if they tried to eat too much too quickly.

Ultimately, however, it wasn't up to her, because the soldier seemed to marshal what little remained of his strength to snatch the cup out of her hand and gulp its contents down greedily, not even mildly bothered by the water leaking out of his parched lips or spilling down his front. He paused to take a breath and his startlingly green eyes, though apparently unable to focus directly on her face, were plaintive as they shifted to gaze in her direction, asking for more because speaking was too hard.

"Okay," she told him gently, laying him back down against the rolled blanket and retrieving more water.

She cut him off after four cups, fearing he might vomit, which would exacerbate his dehydration, or become ill in some other way she wasn't knowledgeable enough to predict. He almost certainly could have drank more, but he uncomplainingly accepted the limitation she imposed. He was resting now, breathing a bit more rapidly than she would have liked, but otherwise calm. She looked him over, involuntarily cringing at the sight of his sunburned skin. She didn't know what she had that could make it feel better; no one aboard the _Globally_ had had much of a chance to get sunburned thanks to the speed with which the ship flew past stars, not to mention its specially designed protective windows that shielded against solar radiation.

Deciding that cool water was probably the best - and only - thing she could do for him, she soaked her remaining cloths in the water and knelt down next to him. "These should help your burns," she told him. He nodded, almost imperceptibly; to do more would have likely sapped too much of his limited energy. Exhaustion spread heavily over him like a blanket. She lay a wet, dripping cloth over his neck and one over each of his hands. He let out a soft sigh and closed his eyes.

"I'll give you more water again soon," she promised with a whisper. The mysterious soldier did not answer, however, for he had already fallen asleep. His breathing slowed, and aside from the angry flush of his skin, he looked at peace for the first time since she'd sighted him.

Willow retreated a short distance to the particular fallen stone column overlooking the spring that she had shared with Dan on that moonlit night so long ago now, from whence she could now keep an eye on her "patient." Though a soft, satisfied whuff and silencing of gears nearby indicated that Zeke had bedded down for the night in the adjacent room, she found that her own fatigue had quite left her. She perched herself on the column, watching steadily over the soldier just as the stars now watched over her. The moons, for their part, peeked brightly through the broken roof, shedding their light on the pensive young woman and slumbering man below.

She sat very still, not even trying to fight the surge of confusing emotions within. Despite his weakened state, as well as her ministrations and the loyalty they would likely engender, she still feared this stranger, feared what he could do to her if and when he regained his strength. At the same time, after ending not one but six lives several months ago, she did not have it in her to allow her fear to doom this one, too. Not yet.

And, in spite of everything, she couldn't help feeling relief, as well: that at last, after so long alone, she now had the company of another like herself.

-.-.-.-

A rasping, tortured cry jolted her out of her half-sleep a couple hours later. Her eyes flew open. The soldier was throwing his head from side to side, shouting hoarsely in words Willow did not understand, although one that he kept repeating sounded like a name.

"Heinrich!" the man yelled. He sat up, grasping into empty space, limbs thrashing violently until his blankets lay in disarray. "Heinrich!"

Zeke was on his feet almost immediately, unsure what to do but ready to act.

"Calm down, calm down," Willow said, hastening to the soldier's side. "You're okay. You're just having a bad dream. It's not real."

He did not hear her. Nor did he see her: his flashing green eyes were wide and sightless. A flailing fist caught her hard in the upper arm. She gasped and backed out of reach, opposite hand wrapping instinctively around the stinging ache already swiftly blossoming there. Zeke took a step forward, snarling angrily at this seeming aggression.

"Stand down, Zeke," Willow said shakily. "He doesn't know what he's doing." Zeke didn't move, and continued staring down the enemy soldier. He needed to protect his pilot; he had no higher calling. Willow took a deep breath. "I said, stand down," she ordered, more clearly and forcefully this time. Zeke reluctantly obeyed, although he remained vigilant and, she noted, within easy striking distance.

She turned back to the man, who was still flailing wildly and would surely drown himself in the uncomfortably close spring if he continued. Willow had never had an opportunity to learn to swim, and she didn't want to try it now when a strapping soldier would be needing rescuing, too. Steeling her nerves, she ducked under a flying arm to shove him hard in the chest until he fell writhing to his back. "Calm down!" she shouted. "Calm down!"

He was clearly in the throes of hallucination. "Heinrich!" he cried again, the word dripping with anguish.

Willow didn't know who Heinrich was. She could find out later. Right now, she needed him to settle down before he hurt her again, or himself. She slipped one leg over his torso until she was straddling his stomach, then pinned down both his arms. Making inhuman sounds, he fought her with surprising strength given his weakened state, but between that and her full body weight holding him down, he began tiring quickly.

The fevered thrashing slowed after a few moments; he panted heavily after such an exertion. His glassy eyes still cast blindly about in every direction, but he was at last beginning to settle. He clenched his reddened fists several times, then stopped. "Come back to me," Willow pleaded, voice no longer raised. "Come back. Come back."

She grabbed a damp cloth nearby and lay it over his neck. He sighed heavily, now finally stilled. "You're alright," she soothed, looking into his face, into his eyes. He was trying to look at and focus on her, and was having trouble doing so. She saw, though, several flashes of clarity, of understanding. She released one of his arms. He remained as he was, blinking and panting but otherwise unmoving. Tentatively, she reached forward and brushed his red hair off of his forehead. The skin there was still painfully hot, but it was damp, as well: he was sweating. A good sign. She climbed off of him and continued to stroke his forehead, tracing her fingers over his sun-like facial marking, smoothing hairs away long after all of them had been swept back.

This gentle action, so like what Hen had done for her when she was small, had a similarly pacifying effect on this stranger. His breathing calmed.

"Heinrich?" he said, voice breaking. There were tears again in his sightless eyes. Zeke whined.

"You're alright," Willow reassured him. "You're alright. Hold on. Stay here with me. Just stay here with me."

He blinked at her. Indescribably brilliant green eyes. Then he closed them and let his head fall back. She stroked his forehead once more and then lay another wet cloth over it. "Rest now," she whispered into his ear. Zeke retreated into his adjacent room, satisfied that his pilot was safe, but he nevertheless continued to listen for any sign of trouble.

The soldier woke up several more times throughout the night, deeply agitated, but thankfully none of these episodes were as severe as the first. Willow faithfully maintained her vigil, reapplied wet cloths, spoke softly, gave him sips of water. When the first tendrils of crimson light were visible through the broken roof above, he was at last sleeping heavily.

Splayed awkwardly across the stone column nearby, Willow was, too.

Zeke, having bowed deeply, stretched out, and initiated the full range of combat and control systems for the day, poked his head into the atrium and spotted his two slumbering charges.

Well, this certainly changed matters.

Zeke lay himself back down contentedly, and watched patiently over both.


	7. ZAC 2061: Year 2 - Chapter 3

**ZAC 2061: YEAR TWO  
** _ **Chapter 3**_

His fever broke the next day.

On the second morning after his arrival, Willow stirred from her uncomfortable position atop the stone column and saw that the soldier was awake. She rubbed sleep from her eyes. "Water?" she said, and this time, when he nodded his assent, he was looking right at her. Not through her any longer, but into her face, wordlessly studying it as if seeing her for the first time. Perhaps he was.

She retrieved the cup and brought it over to him, helping him up to a seated position. This time, though, he was able to remain upright without being propped against her. He held the cup with trembling hands and drank deeply.

When every last drop was gone, he set it down on the floor beside him and looked at her again. She tried not to shrink away from those piercing green eyes, though they were not unfriendly. The skin on his neck, ears, and hands had blistered angrily but was already peeling, a sure sign that his burns were on the mend. Up close, she now saw a smattering of freckles sprinkled over his nose and cheeks, scattered like stars across the night sky. "Do you feel ready for a bit of food?" she asked, hoping his cracked lips would not make eating too painful.

Either they would not, or he had a high tolerance for pain, for he broke into a wide and unexpected smile. "Am I in the great beyond?" he said hoarsely in the Common Tongue, his heavy accent significantly different than Dan's had been. "Are you a messenger? Where are your wings?"

Willow, disarmed by the sudden injection of humor into the heretofore deadly serious status quo, shook her head and stammered, "N-no. I don't think I am."

His eyes wandered around the large space they were in, taking in the fallen walls and columns, the broken roof through which the morning sun was shining, and the white Command Wolf crouched in an adjacent room, keeping watchful eye over them both. "Where am I?" he asked.

"I...don't rightly know," Willow admitted. "We're in the desert in an abandoned ruin. I don't know what its real name is, but we - I call it Fort Zephyr. Because of the winds," she finished lamely.

He gazed a bit more sharply at her after that rambling explanation, obviously sensing that this was not as straightforward a situation as it might have first appeared. However, he opted not to pursue the matter for the time being. "Well, I thank you for finding and rescuing me," he said. "I really thought I was done for."

"Do you remember much of what happened? How long were you out there?"

He considered these questions for a moment. "It was at least twelve hours, probably more. I don't know. It was so hot." He exhaled, seemingly overwhelmed by the mere memory. "I had to abandon my Zoid and I knew I wasn't going to last long in the desert with no shelter and no water, but I had to try, because remaining where I was was a death sentence." He paused again, the act of speaking so much appearing to have tired him out. Willow refilled his cup, which he accepted gratefully. After drinking, he continued, somewhat hoarsely, "I lost so much water just by sweating, and by nightfall, when it started to get cold but I was still in these damp clothes, I think I must have started hallucinating. The moons rose and the stars came out and...and there was a voice. I heard someone's voice."

"A voice?" Willow repeated. "What did it say?"

The soldier shook his head, trying to clear the fog shrouding his recollections. "I wasn't really in my right mind by that point. It's all jumbled now. All I know for sure is that someone said, 'Keep going, hold on,' right before I collapsed. And then the next thing I remember is your Zoid looking down at me, and after that...not much until now. How long ago did you find me?"

"Night before last," Willow said. "You haven't been having an easy time of it. You were burning up with fever. You kept waking in a panic, and weren't in your right mind. It was like you were...just kind of lost someplace else. The only thing I could do to calm you down was talk to you, and give you water, and try to tend to your burns."

He looked at her thin arms, now visibly marred by several bruises, the largest of which, on her upper left arm, was a furious purple. Nodding to them, he asked sadly, "Are those from me?"

She wished she had a long-sleeved shirt on to conceal the evidence of his madnesses, but it was too late now. "It wasn't your fault," she said.

He shook his head ruefully, unconvinced. "I am so sorry."

"You weren't yourself. It's alright." Wishing to change the subject from such a distressing topic, she asked, "What's your name?"

He smiled again, an act that continued to look painful due to the state of his lips, although he barely flinched. "Private Phoenix Standhaft," he replied, raising his arm in a rather limp salute. "At your service, madam." His emerald eyes danced. "I would be all gentlemanly and kiss your hand, but the state of my mouth would undoubtedly cause you to flee in terror."

"That's quite alright," Willow said hastily. "I don't really understand formalities, anyway."

"Fine with me, then," Phoenix agreed easily. "And what is your name, my lovely, invisibly-winged savior?"

There was something destabilizing in this particular form of attention, she was finding. She had never really encountered it before, and didn't quite know what to do with it. Conditions aboard the Globally had never been especially fertile ground for the phenomenon she understood to be called "flirting," which was what she assumed was happening now. "I'm Willow," she managed.

"A beautiful name to go along with a beautiful face," Phoenix said melodramatically, his hand over his heart. He coughed then, a dry, painful-sounding cough, and Willow all but leapt to her feet in alarm.

"More water?" She had already hurried over to the spring and did not see him nod. "I think you're overextending yourself," she said as she crouched down beside him while he drank. "Why don't you try some biscuits that I have? We'll see how they are on your stomach and maybe you can start getting your strength back." He nodded again. His face beneath the remaining flush of sun exposure was pale.

It was just a quick walk across the main street to her cottage and back. She tore open a vacuum-sealed package of hard biscuits. They didn't taste like much, but at least were marginally palatable, and were furthermore engineered to provide more calories than their simple appearance suggested. "Try these," she said, handing him a few.

He was, of course, very hungry, and bit in eagerly. The biscuits crunched noisily as he chewed, but his face lit up. Sufficient levels of hunger could make almost anything taste good, Willow observed.

"Thank you," he said seriously. "You've been so kind, and these days, that's not very common."

"Will you be alright alone for a bit?" she asked, uncomfortably deflecting the compliment. "I'd like to make sure my plants aren't too thirsty. And Zeke could probably stand for a bit of exercise."

"Zeke?" Phoenix looked over at the great wolf, still silently observing them. "Ah. Your Zoid. He's a handsome one, he is."

"Thank you." Willow flushed proudly as though she had engineered and built Zeke herself. "He's a wonderful partner."

"Republican Army version, no?" Phoenix said casually. "You don't often find that particular combination of offensive capabilities on Wolves unaffiliated with the Helic military."

She swallowed. She did not feel comfortable trusting anyone with her secret just yet. She didn't know if or when it would be safe for her to do so. "He's former military," she said, which was mostly the truth. For now, anyway.

"Is that so?" Phoenix grinned impishly at her. His teeth were perfectly straight and white, a fact which somehow did not surprise her even slightly, although there was a tiny gap between the two in front that somehow made his smile that much more charming. "Are you a mercenary? A Zoid thief? Am I even safe here, being at your mercy like this?" He raised his eyebrows, pushing his sun-like facial marking higher up his forehead. "I seem to remember you being on top of me when I was too weak to defend myself."

"Of course you're safe," Willow replied, confused and furthermore turning bright red. "And I didn't steal him, he's mine."

Phoenix coughed again. His face was paler still. "If I'm murdered in my sleep," he joked weakly, "I'll know who to blame. It was the dangerous Zoid thief. Masquerading as an innocent yet unbelievably attractive young woman." He lay himself down on his side, yawned widely, and regarded her with huge green eyes. "Who are you, really?" he queried drowsily. "Who just flits through the desert, rescuing strangers?" His voice faded and his eyelids sunk. "There's a war on, you know…"

Willow watched him as he slumbered. Asleep, he did not look a day older than she herself was, though this was surely not the case; there was an earnest, boyish quality about him now that was belied by the mischievous light in his eyes when he was awake. His handsome face looked so sweet and serene...

Zeke shifted position across the room and Willow caught herself. Shocked, she looked down at her hand hovering in midair; she hadn't even realized she had been reaching out towards Phoenix. Zoidian, or descendant of Earth, it didn't matter: he seemed human to her, and it was only now that she had the company of an actual person that she realized just how much she had ached for warm flesh against her hand. Zeke had been an indispensable and deeply loyal friend, but he was not in any way organic as she understood the term. She longed for the presence of her own kind, and she had not grasped before just how deeply that longing ran.

Phoenix was not her mother, nor any of her siblings or friends from her ship. And he certainly wasn't Dan. But right now, he was all that she had. She shifted herself closer to his sleeping form, listening to his deep, steady breathing, and took his hand in her left, caressing that blistered appendage as though it were a priceless bauble. With her right, she stroked his forehead, feeling the smooth, warm skin again beneath her fingers. Was this a balm for her loneliness, or was it only making things worse? She didn't know.

Fragments of a lullaby Hen had sung to her when Willow had been a young child sprang suddenly into her mind just then, as though consciously summoned. They seemed to have come from some ancient place, long gone and heretofore forgotten. She hummed the few bars she could remember, slowly piecing them together as more and more snippets emerged from the shadowy recesses of her memories, until the full, ageless melody swirled gently through the air around them. Tears gathered in her eyes as the present tenderly bade the past join it. Phoenix sighed once, his face peaceful and content in sleep. Zeke put his head down and gravely listened to a song last sung very far away from here, and for a moment, just for a moment, Willow could have sworn she heard Hen's familiar voice harmonizing distantly with her own.


	8. ZAC 2061: Year 2 - Chapter 4

**ZAC 2061: YEAR TWO  
** ** _Chapter 4_**

"I'm a bit of a mess, aren't I?" Phoenix said by way of greeting on the fourth morning as Willow stirred from her makeshift bed atop the column. He was sitting up on his blankets, appraising his filthy clothes and shaking his head tragically. "I can't imagine I'm a right basket of roses these days, either. Poor wee lamb, working so diligently amidst such filth."

A smile tugged at the corners of Willow's mouth, which Phoenix, who was proving to have a surprisingly keen eye, caught immediately. "Aha!" he cried triumphantly. "You don't deny it! And here I thought we were friends."

It was wonderful to see him in better health and spirits. He was drinking, he was eating, and even his skin had calmed down now that most of the damaged layers had already peeled off. He had been sleeping so much that they still hadn't talked to any significant degree, but it was obvious that that was all about to change.

"Would you like a bath?" Willow asked. "I have some soap I could spare you."

"Oh, that would be very kind," Phoenix said graciously. "I don't suppose I could convince you to personally assist me with such an endeavor?"

Willow, who did not know very much about these matters, nevertheless knew enough to know how to answer. "No."

Phoenix grinned, utterly unsurprised. "Ah. Was worth a try." He went to stand, but looked so shaky doing so that Willow soon found herself at his side. She put his arm over her shoulders and waited patiently as he found his balance. "Thank you. You're a peach. So how does a bath work around here, exactly?" His gaze found the edge of the spring a few feet away. "I'll just fall in the water, then, shall I?"

She laughed and pointed across the room, to another open area unmarred by the damaged building's debris. A large, oblong washbasin stood. Willow had found it while exploring the town one day. It could have been a livestock watering or feeding trough for all she cared; it was the perfect size for a tub. "It's best to bathe in the hottest part of the day, when you won't mind the cold water as much," she told him. "But basically I just fill it up with buckets and hop in. It's already full since I'd been planning to wash my clothes before I found you."

"I see." Phoenix looked from the basin to the spring. "You don't want to contaminate your drinking water. Clever, and a good thing to have thought of before it was too late. I'll make sure I don't go tumbling in then - unless I'm already scrubbed clean."

"The spring is all I have," Willow explained as they walked over to the basin, then decided to stop talking before she revealed too much, but it was too late.

"It's just you and Zeke here, isn't it?" The wind whistled around the jagged edges of the atrium's broken skylights just then, accenting his question. He took hold of the side of the washbasin, and Willow, turning her back to give him some privacy, went and sat on the other side of a small nearby pile of rubble.

"It is." There was no use denying it. She leaned back against a stone with steel cabling poking out of it at crazy angles, idly wondering what had happened here to have damaged this sturdy building to such a degree.

"Why?" Phoenix asked. She heard the soft thump of his clothes being dropped to the floor, and then the swish of water as he stepped into the tub. "Oh, but it's chilly. Lovely, though." Further swishes were followed by a happy sigh. "Will you come sit over here by me?" When this request was met only with awkward silence, he added, "I promise there's nothing to see."

Willow cautiously peeped her head over the debris pile she'd been leaning against, and sure enough, the only parts of Phoenix that were visible were his head, neck, and rather muscular shoulders. The outline of what his uniform had protected from the sun was visible in the demarcation between pale skin and that which was red and peeling. "Okay," she said uncertainly, repositioning herself on the side of the rubble that faced him.

"I'll admit to being completely ridiculous, but I am most assuredly not some kind of creep," Phoenix said with a laugh as he raised a hand and watched water trickle off of it back into the tub. Willow only had a vague sense of what he meant by this, and so, not wishing to betray her ignorance, she remained silent. "How did you come to be alone out here?" he asked again. "Why don't you leave? Or do you prefer to be on your own?"

"I don't," she said without thinking. She nervously brushed a lock of brown hair behind her ear. "It's just something I need to do for right now."

"I knew it. You're on the run from the law." He chuckled to himself, and when she didn't join him, he looked over at her. "You know, you can always just say, 'Hey Phoenix, stop being so nosy, shut up,'" he said. "I know it's none of my business. I simply can't help asking. Your situation is rather...curious, to say the least."

"You really have no idea," Willow muttered grumpily, staring at her feet.

"Oh?" He draped his dripping upper body over the side of the tub, gazing at her with interest and a dazzling smile. His arms were gorgeously muscular, too. She realized with a start that she had already seen more of Phoenix in four days than she ever had of Dan. "Do tell."

"Hey Phoenix, stop being so nosy, shut up."

He laughed loudly and relaxed back into the tub. "Oh, I like you."

Willow smiled to herself.

-.-.-.-

When her guest was thoroughly clean, dry, and wearing left-behind clothes she had located in a sturdy armoire a block away, Willow put his arm over her shoulder and they made their slow way across the boulevard to her little hut, pausing frequently when he became dizzy or winded.

"It's a little soon for you to be bringing me over to your place, isn't it?" He laughed, mostly to himself, then looked her cottage over once they'd entered. "This is where you live?" She nodded. "Very cozy. Home sweet home!" He collapsed gratefully into the chair at the table where Willow did her writing, and peered curiously at the pile of paper thereon. Nearly every available inch of the top sheet was covered in her careful, upright hand. "What have you got here?"

"A project to pass the time," she replied, becoming more adept at deflecting his numerous questions with responses that were largely true, yet revealed little. She took the pile and stacked it with the others on a shelf, away from his prying eyes.

"'Hey Phoenix, stop being so nosy, shut up,'" he quoted, grinning fiendishly at her as she gracefully went about the small room watering her plants in what was obviously a practiced motion. He watched her do this for a few moments, then looked around at the counter, the plants, the shelves stuffed full of books, and the small, neatly made bed in an alcove. It was obvious she was not merely passing through this abandoned town; there was a decidedly settled air to the place. "Hey," he said suddenly, breaking the comfortable silence. She turned to look at him. There was no trace of mischief on his face now. "Will you show me around? I'd love to stretch my legs a little, seeing as how I'm capable of walking again."

"Sure." She smiled shyly at him. "Zeke will want to come, too. He's been cooped up for awhile."

She helped Phoenix back to his feet and slung his arm over her shoulders once more. "I promise I won't always be such a worthless lump," he said ruefully. "I do feel stronger each day."

"You're not a burden," she said, beaming up at him as they made their slow way across the street again. "I don't mind having a guest."

"I knew you'd fall for me eventually," Phoenix declared. "It was only a matter of time."

At the doorway to the atrium, Willow called inside. "Zeke? Want to come out for a walk?" A whirring of gears provided his wordless answer. "Don't want you rusting in there."

He was just about to come trotting out of the side entrance when he stopped in his tracks and looked up at the sky, snarling quietly. Phoenix and Willow both looked up as well. A faint droning sound was just barely audible over the ceaseless desert breeze.

"Redler scout," Phoenix said immediately, squinting into the blue. There was a sharp edge to his voice. He looked over at Zeke, whose head was sticking out of the large doorway. "Get him inside. Now."

"But-"

Phoenix looked down at her, exasperated. "Willow, I don't really know what's going on, but it's clear enough that you're trying to hide from someone or something. If that's the case, then get Zeke out of sight!"

She stared at him for a moment, then looked away. "Back up, Zeke," she ordered. "Go inside and wait until I give the all-clear." The wolf retreated obediently into his hangar-sized space, hidden from aerial view. She chewed the inside of her cheek anxiously, watching the tiny speck high above.

Phoenix did the same for awhile, the droning all that could be heard, save the restless wind. At length, he broke the long silence. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you."

She shook her head, shifting his arm on her shoulder so as to bear more of his weight. "It's alright. Really."

"I didn't mean to raise my voice. I just…" He smiled wanly. "It's none of my business. You don't have to tell me a thing, of course. I just wanted to help."

"I know." She continued observing the Zoid make its way across the sky for a moment, then turned to him. "A Redler is a flying Zoid?"

Startled by the nature of her abrupt question, he looked down at this strange creature bearing so much of his weight on her thin shoulders and gazing so earnestly up at him, and took a few seconds to ponder the very idea that someone existed on Zi who did not know what a Redler was. He turned slightly and looked out into the desert north of the village, where the remains of barracks, hunched low to the ground in their sad state of ruin, were just visible. "Yes," he said thoughtfully after a long moment.

"And Redlers belong to the Empire?" Willow pressed. Her curiosity was so overwhelming that she did not even realize she was tipping her hand. It had not been so very long ago that she'd been utterly ignorant as to the mere existence of flying-type Zoids, but now, here with her right at this very moment, was someone who could answer every question she could think of. It was a heady feeling, full of possibility.

"Typically, yes." They waited in silence for a couple of minutes, watching the wee speck far overhead fly slowly past. When it became so distant that it had nearly vanished, Phoenix said quietly, "Zeke can come back out now. You're safe."

"All clear, buddy," Willow called, and the great wolf reemerged with a happy woof. "What would happen if they saw him?" she asked Phoenix.

"Scouts look for incursions on Imperial territory, or try to spy and see what the Republic is up to. Infantry movements and stuff like that. If they spotted Zeke, and recognized him for what he is, this place would be crawling with troops in no time. It would look to them like the Republic had some kind of secret base set up here."

Willow said nothing. She had returned to squinting worriedly into the sky where the Redler had last been visible.

"Willow?"

She started. "What?"

"Why are you hiding here?"

She hoisted his arm more securely over her shoulders again, a stubborn set to her mouth, and did not answer. Instead, she began to walk, which meant Phoenix began walking, too.

Their progress could be considered glacial. Poor Zeke, alongside them, had to walk so slowly that he mostly appeared to be standing still. Nevertheless, they managed to start their way down the wide boulevard. Once they were underway, Phoenix supported more and more of his own weight until he had only one hand on Willow's right shoulder for balance. His first steps were halting and clumsy, but he quickly regained poise. "I think I'm starting to get the hang of this walking thing," he joked.

Willow knew he was trying to lighten the mood after the awkwardness earlier, and was grateful to him for this gesture. They stopped a few doors down from her own hut. "This is my counting house," she said.

He tightened his grip on her shoulder as he stepped carefully over the threshold, then gazed around him in wonder. "Did...did you put all these here?" he asked, taking in the numerous ash markings nearly covering an entire section of the wall.

She nodded. "One for every day since I came here. Oh! I forgot to add any after I found you." She dipped her thumb into the fireplace and added four more dark smudges.

Phoenix was clearly doing some rough calculations in his head. "You've been here a long time," he remarked. Willow resisted the urge to ask how many days were in a year, which would be far too obvious, and her patience was soon rewarded. "Looks like very nearly two years." He looked at her with something that approached admiration. "And you've been on your own this whole time?"

"A bit longer, actually," she said. "But I've had Zeke, too, so I haven't been completely alone."

They left the counting house and continued making their slow way down the main street. Phoenix seemed to be lost in thought. He was also doing better walking and was putting less and less pressure on her shoulder. "Let me try this myself," he said eventually, removing his hand. The place on her shoulder where it had formerly rested suddenly felt empty to her, exposed. She remained close by to help if he needed her, but he didn't. He was practically beaming, in fact, pleased to be independent once more. She was glad for this recovery of ability, yet surprised by how much it felt like a loss, too.

Another few minutes' quiet walk brought them all the way to the southern end of the wide street. He squinted into the empty desert beyond where they stood. No sign remained of what had happened there, what Willow had done, months ago. "I'm not going to lie, I'd be happy to never go out there again," he murmured.

"I don't blame you," Willow said feelingly. Her eyes left the blinding brightness of that endless expanse of sand and shifted to Fern's house, seemingly teetering on the edge of falling into the emptiness beyond. It looked so vulnerable there, a feeling which Willow still shared more times than she wished to admit.

Phoenix noticed Willow's deadened gaze in the direction of the particular house they now stood near. "And what's in this one?" he asked carefully.

Willow started. She hadn't realized she'd been staring at it that conspicuously. She shook her head. "It's just a house."

Phoenix almost certainly did not believe her, but he nodded sagely anyway. "So it is." He gestured down the narrow street heading east away from them. "Shall we?"

They continued along, Zeke remaining patiently next to Fern's house because the street beyond was too small for him to follow without potentially destroying his surroundings. Phoenix still seemed to be mulling something over. Willow wondered if this was something she should be getting anxious about or not, so after a time she attempted to fill the silence with chatter. "I found a ton of metal hoops and wooden slats in this house one time," she said, gesturing to a squat building to their left. "Not sure what I could use them for, but I'm sure they'll come in handy at some point."

Phoenix looked over at the sign hanging on a metal arm over the doorway. "Well, it's not all that surprising to find metal hoops and wooden slats there, I'd say."

"It's not?"

He laughed. "Of course not, considering what business used to operate there."

"What business?"

Phoenix stopped walking and looked her over, nodding to himself. "This explains everything."

"What do you mean?" She hated being left in the dark. "What?"

"You don't know how to read, do you?"

"Of course I know how to read!" she snapped. Whether he was actually making fun of her or simply teasing, she wasn't sure, but either way, his patronizing expression was infuriating. "How do you think I wrote all of that stuff back at my house?"

"Then what's that say?" he asked, pointing at the hanging sign.

Willow squinted at the unfamiliar word for several seconds, hoping some meaning would reveal itself to her, but she was disappointed. Truth be told, it was a word she had never encountered in her children's books before. She furthermore had no idea how any given written word in that language, whatever it was called, was pronounced; she had been exposed to Zi's local languages in spoken form only a scant few times, and most of those few times had occurred during traumatic circumstances, at that. "I don't know," she finally admitted.

"That's alright," said Phoenix imperiously, putting his arm around her shoulders as though she were in need of comfort. "Nothing wrong with growing up a feral child. I can teach you everything you need to know."

"I wasn't a feral child!" she retorted, shrugging him off. "I just don't know that particular language, okay?"

"And what language might that be?" Phoenix's wide grin was maddening.

She looked smugly at him then. "You know, I'm awfully hungry. I think it's time I had some lunch. You said you wanted some more practice walking, so I'll leave you to that, yeah? You know where my house is, right?" She made to head off.

"Don't leave me!" Phoenix bleated immediately. "I'm sorry I teased you!" He hobbled back over to her as swiftly as he could and took her arm, as though afraid she might dash off at any moment. She eyed him skeptically. "I'm sorry, I am. I tease everyone. Usually it makes people laugh, but sometimes it's just annoying."

She nodded and grinned at him. "It is indeed. It's alright. I wasn't really going to ditch you, by the way. All that said, I feel like an outsider enough as it is. I don't need all the reminders, you know?"

"Yeah, I get it. It's just that...I don't think I've ever met anyone who couldn't read Helic before, to be honest," he said. "Anyone with schooling above year six or so is at least passable in both. But if that _and_ Guylic are foreign to you, then how did you come to speak the Common Tongue? It's almost always learned as a third language."

Willow sighed and said nothing. Part of her very much wanted to tell him everything, but an even bigger part did not.

"And you didn't know what a Redler was," he continued. "And you've lived here, alone, for some time, but you don't even know where we are."

"You mean you do?" she said quickly, looking up at him.

"Of course I do. In the army we needed to know the geography of this area very well, especially because we had to make sure we didn't accidentally stray out of our territory. It would cause a lot of problems if we did. Such as war." He was still holding her arm. Lightly. "I knew the direction I was going when I was out in the desert, and I knew the place I was trying to get to. I saw the barracks out there," he said, pointing north. "And then that Redler scout came, and I know their patrol patterns. This is Solas Base, a Republican outpost abandoned almost twenty years ago." He was staring at her hard with those unnaturally green eyes, though there was nothing unkind in his expression. "The question remaining now is, where on Zi did you come from? Like, that is a literal question: where on Zi? Did you come all the way from Delpoi or something?"

Willow didn't know what Delpoi was, but she assumed it was a place very, very far away. Not quite as far as Earth, but still far. "No." He looked as though he was about to ask her more questions, to press the subject, but she shook her head. "It's not safe for me to tell you any more than I already have. I'm sorry." By this point, she was reasonably sure that Phoenix meant her no harm, but what if he were loose-lipped around his army superiors when he returned to wherever it was he'd come from? She would be in terrible danger, and Zeke probably would, too. The big wolf had been such a steadfast friend that she couldn't bear the thought of anything happening to him.

With a start, she then hurriedly backtracked over that trail of thoughts and was forced to acknowledge, for the first time, that Phoenix would be leaving someday, perhaps someday soon, and then the long stretch of isolation in which she had lived before would again return.

"I'm going to keep looking around some more," Phoenix said. He sounded a bit resigned. He had let go of her arm and was now walking slowly down the block again, westward, back to the main street. "By the way," he said over his shoulder, "that sign says 'cooper' in Helic."

A barrel-maker. Of course. There had been nothing so old-fashioned as barrels aboard the _Globally_ , but she nevertheless knew what they were, and was surprised she hadn't figured out the identity of that building sooner. She watched Phoenix make his careful way down the street, his long limbs graceful in their leanness, his figure tall and thin but slumped and somehow strikingly vulnerable. Perhaps because, shuffling awkwardly along on the empty street, he looked so unbearably alone, as though he were the last person alive on Zi.

She jogged over to him. He didn't look at her, just kept deliberately planting his feet, step by step by step. She knew he must be feeling frustrated. Weak when he was used to strength, useless when he'd been a part of a well-drilled team, wanting to help her but being held at arm's length. Her secret loomed large between them, and probably would continue to do so for some time to come, but that wasn't what mattered most. The most important thing was that, for reasons utterly unknown to the other, they would both be alone in the world right now were it not for the presence of the other. He perhaps didn't realize it, but she needed him, too. She suspected he would feel better, if he knew this.

She reached out and took his hand, cupping it between both of hers. "Phoenix." He stopped walking. "Will you teach me?" she asked. He met her gaze, and held it expressionlessly. She pointed at the cooper's sign. "To read and speak...Helic?"

Having lived almost her entire life aboard a massive spacefaring vessel, Willow had not once since her arrival on Zi tired of the phenomenon known as sunrise. And when Phoenix gave her a grin then, a real one, his freckles shifting sweetly across his cheeks, it hit her like those young, glorious rays of morning's first light.


	9. ZAC 2061: Year 2 - Chapter 5

**ZAC 2061: YEAR TWO  
** _ **Chapter 5**_

That night, Willow's cottage felt more like a home than it, or anything else on Zi, ever had. She and Phoenix were seated at her table, sharing food and ample laughter as her steadfast little lamp blazed happiness out into the room along with its light. The meal was simple, as Willow lacked much beyond the canned stores leftover from the _Globally_ , but it was an enjoyable evening nevertheless. Phoenix's green eyes glinted brightly in the lamplight and his handsome smile felt like something that was sustaining her, helping her survive. Sharing her company and basic fare, he looked more alive than she'd ever seen him. He'd been holding on to some deep loneliness, too, she thought.

Her lessons, the ostensible reason for their dinner together, were almost constantly interrupted by Phoenix's teasing or stories or jokes. He was a total ham and an incorrigible flirt, and delighted in making fun of either her or himself, as long as it made her laugh. She wasn't learning much Helic - which, he had explained, was also the language in which her precious children's books had been written - but she was having a grand time just the same.

There came a lull in their conversation as the meal wound down. Willow pushed her remaining bits of squash in aimless paths around her plate. "It's a shame Zeke's too big to have joined us," she commented after a time. "I think he gets lonely out here sometimes."

"Missing the barracks life, eh?" Phoenix leaned back and rested his head into his entwined fingers with a contented sigh. "It's not a glamorous life, I'll tell you that. Not sure what there would be for him to miss."

Willow of course couldn't mention Dan, so she ventured, "A purpose, maybe? A place in the larger picture?"

"Maybe." Phoenix got a faraway look in his eyes just then, so Willow stood and took his plate and fork to the wash basin on the counter.

"Oh!" she said suddenly, stopping halfway. "I almost forgot!" Phoenix looked up at her curiously. "There's dessert!"

"Is there, now?" He sat up immediately, rubbing his hands together greedily. "Oh Willow, you shouldn't have, and when I say 'you shouldn't have,' I am lying through my teeth. I was beginning to think you had no sweets at all around here!"

She laughed. "Don't get your hopes up. It's a dessert in the sense that it's a special treat, you see."

"Be that as it may, I'm happy with whatever you serve me, my wingless savior."

She turned to the counter, waving off such silly comments, and stacked their dishes neatly in the basin. When she turned back to face him, she had a small red ball in each hand. With a huge grin, she held one up so he could see better. "Cherry tomatoes. Grew them myself at my little farm, and these are the first I've been able to harvest."

"My dear woman!" Phoenix exclaimed, eyes wide. "You would share such a wondrous bounty with the likes of me?"

"I would indeed," she replied.

"I will cherish this moment forever," he declared solemnly, and, taking the tomato delicately from her outstretched hand, he popped the entire thing in his mouth.

Willow did the same and closed her eyes as fireworks of flavor burst on her tongue. After nearly two years of subsisting on canned produce, this freshness was a revelation, and she meant to relish it. A blissful sigh involuntarily escaped her. When she opened her eyes again, Phoenix was struggling mightily to hold back laughter, though only partially succeeding. "Oh, shut up," she told him, chuckling a bit herself. "I haven't had food that didn't come from a can for a long, long time."

"So you have a wee farm here, you say?" he asked, having gotten control of himself.

She nodded. "I found some seeds in...one of the houses here, and thought I might plant them and see what happened. I'm trying to grow these, and regular-size tomatoes, and beans, squash, pumpkin, potatoes, carrots, and some other vegetables. There are even some plants already growing on the plot I found that somehow survived long-term abandonment." She looked out the window, thinking perhaps there was a thing or two she could learn from those plants. "My stores are going to run out sooner or later, and I thought if I grew some of my own food it would help them last longer."

"That it would," Phoenix agreed. "You're quite the phenomenon, you know. Strong and smart and beautiful, and if I'm not much mistaken, I detect a hint of repressed recklessness in there, too," he said, pointing to her heart. "I don't think I've ever met anyone quite like you."

"I can guarantee that you haven't," she said wryly, and looked out the window again. A sprinkling of stars was visible above the tall atrium across the street. "I don't think I'm going to be learning any more of the Helic language this evening. I was wondering…" She trailed off, twirling a lock of brown hair around her finger nervously. Phoenix raised his eyebrows and gazed calmly at her from his seat at the table, waiting. "Would you want to come outside with me tonight? And stargaze? I used to do that every night with Zeke, it was this thing we had, and since you got here I haven't had much chance to-"

"I'd love to," he interrupted, carefully standing up. His eyes were shining in the lamplight, and Willow basked in their warmth.

-.-.-.-

Zi's moons were low over the horizon in the north, making for exceptional stargazing in Willow and Zeke's usual spot to the south. Zeke joined the pair at the end of the main street, and all three gazed up in wonder.

"They look so close sometimes, even though I know how far away they are," Willow said quietly. To speak noisily seemed heretical, for it would surely shatter the night magic surrounding them.

Phoenix, not picking up on her unintended double meaning, nodded. "Like you could reach out and touch them."

Willow was immediately enchanted by this idea. "Zeke, if you lifted us up, do you think we could pluck the stars out of the sky?"

Zeke, being a more literal sort and not prone to the flights of linguistic whimsy Zoidians (and humans too, apparently) were known for, didn't see how this could be possible. He cocked his head and growled in confusion, making Willow laugh. "Could you please lift us up, anyway?" The Command Wolf naturally obliged, lowering his head and raising the canopy glass. "There's a spot right behind my seat you can kind of squeeze into," she told Phoenix as they both clambered into the cockpit. However, this positioning was so antithetical to serene relaxation under the stars that they wound up sharing the space: facing each other and with their feet on the pilot's seat, they each settled on an outer ledge of the cockpit, being careful to keep their thighs clear of Zeke's many instrument panels. It was less precarious a perch than it looked.

Once Zeke was confident that his passengers were secure, he slowly raised his head up until he stood at full height. Willow had long loved the giddy rush of her stomach plummeting downwards whenever Zeke made this upward motion with his head, and it felt no less exciting now, with another person in the cockpit with her for the first time in what seemed like an eternity.

Whether she imagined it or not, the stars did indeed seem a little closer from this great height, and she marveled at them anew. "I love this," she said with a happy sigh.

"I must admit," Phoenix said, in a tone that Willow already understood to mean a bit of flirtatious jest was coming, "this is a very romantic activity you've chosen for us, Willow. I'm rather blushing, over here."

She laughed, for even in the watery starlight, his skin was pale enough that a blush would have been readily apparent. "That wasn't the reason I chose it."

"Ouch! They call you Willow the Heartbreaker, don't they?"

She playfully nudged his foot with hers. "Are you this ridiculous with everyone?"

He nodded emphatically. "I think it's kind of my job, at this point." The smile faded from his face, and he gazed meditatively up at the stars. "They look different now than they did a few nights ago when I was lost out there," he said. "The sky was just as enormous then, but instead of being vast and beautiful like it is now, it felt like this...big empty void or something, ready to swallow me up forever. It very nearly did, I think."

Willow knew exactly what he meant by this, recalling well when darkened skies had been an enemy, instead of a place of sacred memory and wonder. She couldn't imagine the fear and suffering Phoenix had endured that night. She wondered what it was that had caused him to be out in the desert alone like that in the first place, but given how many secrets she herself was keeping, she wasn't sure that she could, in fairness, ask.

It was Phoenix who posed a question, however. "I know I've been kidding around a lot about you being my savior. But I never got to ask you: how on Zi did you find me out there? This desert takes up at least two-thirds of the continent. There's no way it was just coincidence." He paused, unsure. "Right?"

Willow had swung her hair over her right shoulder and was now absently toying with its ends as she recalled that night, twisting sections of hair in circles until they doubled over onto themselves, then releasing. "It was your flare," she said. "We never would have found you without it."

"My flare?"

"It wasn't what I would have thought a flare looked like, but it helped us find you, so I guess it did its job, right?"

"What flare are you talking about? I didn't have any flares with me out there."

Willow dropped her hair. "The lights," she said, looking curiously at him. "The lights that were right over where you lay."

He shook his head slowly. "I had no lights with me, Willow. I didn't really have much of anything with me by that point."

"But...what led us to you, then? I swear I'm not imagining things. Zeke saw them too, right buddy?" The Zoid growled his agreement. Phoenix was still regarding her blankly. "There were these dancing lights, hovering right above you, and it was almost as if they were positioned in the shape of something, but I never could tell what. And then as soon as we got to you, they vanished."

He looked over her shoulder at the desert beyond, his thoughts someplace far. "I wonder…" Willow waited patiently for him to come back. When he did, his eyes, deep green and luminous in the starlight, focused on her. "There's a legend, an Elemia desert legend," he said simply. The wind, a little warm tonight, caressed them both and he ran one hand through his coppery hair. "I never really thought anything of it until now, because it's just a little bedtime story you hear as a kid. But the way you described the lights…"

Willow couldn't help herself. "What legend?"

"It's barely even a story, really, since a story needs to have an actual plot. Or maybe the rest of the tale has been lost to time. But anyway, the legend says that a restless...ghost Zoid wanders the desert, helping people. It's called 'the mirage.'"

Goosebumps prickled Willow's skin as she thought of the lights she'd seen, and the looming, momentary image of something bigger than Zeke. They certainly had been Zoid-sized. But a ghost? Weren't you supposed to be afraid of a ghost, instead of drawn to its peaceful and soothing presence, as she and Zeke had been? If she could suspend disbelief about fairy tales long enough to really consider the matter, though, the legend made a certain kind of sense. "It felt like the lights were waiting there for Zeke and me to find," she said softly. "Like whatever it was, it needed to tell us that you were there. So we could help."

Phoenix shook his head and chuckled. "I guess we'll never know. It's a crazy world we live in, isn't it?"

Willow, considering this question, grew thoughtful. She lived here, yes, but she didn't belong. She wondered if she would ever feel like more than a visitor to this beautiful planet upon which she'd been stranded alone. How many more stories and legends were there here on Zi that she'd never heard before? Were they even quantifiable?

The stars winked and twinkled at her and she gazed affectionately at these kindly friends. "Zeke, can you get us any closer?" she asked, not seriously, although Zeke did not understand that. Willow and Phoenix were jostled slightly and held on to the pilot's seat for support as Zeke carefully shifted his weight onto his hindquarters, then sat up on his hind legs, unfurling them longer and longer until he was sturdily balanced on his hocks, his neck extended up as high as he could reach. Willow laughed, marveling at this feat, and wondered if there were any limit to what he could do.

"You've got an amazing Zoid," Phoenix remarked, laughing too. "I hope someday you can meet mine."

"I hope so, too."

He smiled warmly at her, she blushed and looked at her lap, and so they sat in companionable silence for some time more, the starry constellations spinning slowly by overhead.

-.-.-.-

Zeke had been tucked into his room for the night, and Willow and Phoenix now stood outside her front door. Solitude weighed heavily upon her, and she suddenly wished her new friend could stay in her cottage tonight, but she did not know how to ask this question without crossing some unknown line. What lay beyond that line, she knew not, and she wasn't sure she was ready to find out, either. And so, she stood mutely as the silence between them swelled awkwardly.

Phoenix again came to her rescue. "I was wondering," he said hesitantly, "if maybe I could stay here with you tonight?" Expecting some protest or visible alarm, he swiftly added, "Not for any reason you might think. I just thought it would be good to...to have some company." He grinned at her then, and it almost, though not entirely, hid his discomfort. "And not to sound like an ungrateful prat, but those blankets can only do so much to cushion my poor back from the stone underneath."

It was cold at night in the atrium sometimes, leading to the impossible choice of sleeping on more blankets for cushioning, or sleeping below more blankets for warmth. His sleeping arrangements were, in fact, far less accommodating than his mild complaint made them seem. "There's an extra bed we could make up for you," she said, glad not to have had to bring up the idea herself.

Relief flooded his face. "Perfect," was all he said.

They retrieved the bedclothes he'd been sleeping on beside the spring, and together arranged them on a bed Willow had been using as a messy repository for the books she had taken from her ship.

When all was in order, she smiled shyly at him. She had never had an overnight guest before. "Do you have everything you need?"

He nodded, settling in under the covers. "My goodness," he sighed dreamily, "this bed is just luscious. You're a doll, have I mentioned that lately? Thank you."

"You are very welcome." She turned out the lamp and climbed into her own bed. "Good night, Phoenix."

"Good night, Willow," he said sleepily from across the room, his words hushed in the darkness.

Their small world settled into stillness, and the wind sang songs through the eaves until both were lulled to sleep.


	10. ZAC 2061: Year 2 - Chapter 6

**ZAC 2061: YEAR TWO  
** ** _Chapter 6_**

Phoenix awoke to a room glowing crimson from the sunrise. He sat up, stretched, and ran a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. His joints didn't ache. His skin wasn't burning. He felt better than he had in days.

He stood and padded noiselessly towards the front door, then turned to look over at Willow, still sound asleep in her bed in the little alcove. Her face was peaceful, and unsullied by the sadness and worry that, unbeknownst to her, were near-permanently etched there. That loneliness she wore like a shroud clouded her view of the rest of the world. What was this pain that she always carried?

He watched her tenderly for a few moments, heard the soft whisper of her breath, admired for the hundredth time her smooth skin and soft lips, now slightly parted. She was beautiful, of course, and the worst part was, she probably had no idea.

He shook his head to dislodge the thoughts that were gathering like stormclouds on the horizon, then went silently out the door and to the atrium before that tempest caught up with him.

"Morning, Zeke," he said as he passed the doorway to the Zoid's room. Zeke, though resting quietly with his chin to the ground, was already awake and snuffled a little greeting.

Phoenix went to the wash basin, dragged it some distance away from the edge of the spring, and with some effort was able to heave it onto its side so the filthy water from his bath the morning prior could tumble out. He then dragged the tub back to its original position, retrieved the nearby bucket, and commenced the tedious task of filling it back up with clean water.

It was exhausting work, but welcomed. There was a crackling energy in his limbs that he needed to dispel, and an arduous chore such as this was just what he needed.

When the basin was filled to his satisfaction, he shed the simple farmer's clothes Willow had lent him and stepped into the water's chilly embrace. It felt marvelous, and the little bolts of lightning racing through his body calmed as he settled in.

His stomach growled, the sound comically amplified by its aqueous surroundings and the metal of the basin. He sunk lower in the tub and gazed down at his naked form, studying it curiously as though he had never seen it before. Pale thighs and belly shifted and refracted as the water swirled lightly around him. That body to which he had been accustomed for so long, lean and sinewy and utterly his, had been replaced by another that felt alien and suspect. The shallow depression of his stomach, once flat and muscled but now concave, was clear evidence of how much weight he had lost during his ill-conceived desert adventure and subsequent recovery. His stomach growled again, and he thought of Willow, kindly sharing her limited food supplies with him with nary a restriction nor word of complaint. He had done the same for a stranger as well, once upon a time, and he knew firsthand what a sacrifice such generosity was. Whatever farming Willow was doing was going to be an uphill battle for her, even in a rare oasis such as this. Desert agriculture was notoriously difficult, even for seasoned veterans, which she obviously was not.

He didn't know why, but she was stuck here, and even with growing her own produce, her food supplies weren't going to last. The more of her food he ate, the greater the danger he placed her in.

In addition to all of this, there was, of course, the whole reason he had been out in the desert in the first place. There was someplace important he still needed to go.

He sighed, and knew what he had to do.

It was time to ask for one more favor.

-.-.-.-

Willow's face brightened when Phoenix stepped across the threshold of her hut some time later, fresh and clean. "I was wondering where you'd gone."

"I hope I didn't wake you, kind hostess."

"No, no, not at all. I used to be a light sleeper when I first got here - all the strange wind noises and such. But now I'm pretty used to it." He nodded and sat down at the little table. "Would you like some breakfast?"

"No thanks, I'm not hungry." He would have gotten away with this fib, too, had his stomach not at that exact moment announced, yet again, its irritation at being empty. She of course heard, and raised her eyebrows. "I'm fine, honest," he said.

"Well, _I'm_ hungry. I was going to see if there was anything I could use in my garden. Maybe something magically ripened overnight and is now ready to eat?"

He shrugged. "I suppose anything's possible."

"That's the spirit! Want to come with? There was one other cool place I didn't show you yesterday, too."

"Sure." He swallowed uneasily. Out on a walk would be the perfect time to ask, but he dreaded doing so. She had already done, and given, so much, and he wasn't sure how she would respond to yet another request on top of everything else.

Outside, the early sunlight on their faces promised another hot day to come. Side by side they strolled down the main street, each lost in their own thoughts. When they had reached the southern end, Phoenix again noticed Willow's dead eyes cast in the direction of the house abutting the desert. Something had happened there, he knew. Something bad. The sand beyond betrayed no evidence of its secrets.

"Willow?"

She snapped back to the present almost immediately and smiled at him. "Sorry. Just thinking about something."

"I can see that." He was curious but did not wish to upset her. They continued on, eastward again, in the direction of the cooper's building. "Did anyone else ever live here with you?" he asked, trying to approach the matter from a safe distance.

She shook her head. "Always been just Zeke and me."

"Considering the fact that you have to manage everything yourself, it's amazing how well you're doing. It's hard to raise crops out here, you know? You're lucky to have all those food stores to help."

"I am," she agreed, though there was a wary tone in her voice. "Phoenix, why are we talking about this?"

"Well, um. There was something I wanted to ask you." She stopped and turned to him. There were glints of suspicion - or was it fear? - in her brown eyes, which startled him. Was she _afraid_ of him? The very thought stopped his words dead in their tracks. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Maybe we should talk about this later, instead?"

"Alright," she said, coolly and a bit too readily, and they walked on.

On the southeastern end of the town, they reached the hangar where Zeke had spent many nights the previous year. After the bandit attack, Willow had worked hard the following day and night to remove all outwardly visible evidence of its aftermath, and part of that task had entailed burying out in the desert those Zoids too damaged for her to repair, while saving the snail and one of the Molgas, which might come in handy someday. It was in Zeke's old hangar that she had stored them, and it was into that large room that she now led Phoenix.

His face immediately lit up. "Wow!" he exclaimed, wide-eyed. "You have other Zoids! You've been holding out on me, Willow!" He was so excited he tripped over an uneven patch in the floor and would have gone toppling over had she not swiftly intervened and caught his arm. "Where did you get these?! Do you know what this means?"

Willow twirled a lock of hair around her finger uneasily. Had she revealed too much? "Um…"

Phoenix couldn't believe his luck. Not only were these Zoids the perfect segue into the favor that he needed to ask her, but if she agreed to help, they would make the job much easier. "These - these are yours?" he asked, needing to be sure, even though it was perfectly obvious that, for all intents and purposes, they were.

"Sort of," Willow replied. She peered closely at his radiant face. He was genuinely excited, and not for any diabolical reason she could discern, either. She wanted so badly to trust him, to tell him everything; suddenly, that need was nearly overwhelming.

Her thoughts were interrupted by his sudden turning to her. He grasped both of her hands in his, and looked plaintively, desperately, into her eyes. "Willow, my dear," he said. It sounded as though he were about to launch into one of his flirtatious jokes, but his tone was pleading. "Please...please. I...have one more favor to ask of you, and I would not ask if it were not critically important. You've already given me so much, but I need to ask for just one more thing." He bit his lip. "Please."

She looked down at their clasped hands, feeling the heat and life and humanness through his palms, then back up at him, and she knew then, as much she'd ever known anything in her life, that he was real, that he needed her, that he would not purposely harm her, ever. Beneath the humor and irreverence with which he shielded himself from a dangerous world, there was someone pure, and kind, and vulnerable. He was more like what she remembered of Dan than she had ever thought possible.

She smiled up at him, squeezing his hands. Warmth bloomed in her chest. "Of course," she said, and there it was again, his smile, the light of the sun rising, a joy residing between them that was as spacious and beautiful as the sky.

His hair shimmered gold and russet in the sunlight filtering through the slit-like windows near the ceiling, and his bright eyes were serious as they held hers.

"I need to find Fuzzy," he said.


	11. ZAC 2061: Year 2 - Chapter 7

**ZAC 2061: YEAR TWO**  
 _ **Chapter 7**_

The blazing desert sun beat mercilessly down upon them several days later, undeterred even by the late afternoon hour. Willow was drowsily seated on the front bench of the bandits' snail Zoid, which, she had been told, was called a Gustav, while Phoenix piloted it. Theirs was a comfortable silence, filled by the wind whistling around the Gustav's contours, and the low hum of its wheels churning doggedly through the sand.

The heat in the cockpit wasn't quite at the level of oppressive, but it was weighty nevertheless, and between that and the blinding sunlight, Willow could scarcely keep her eyes open. Phoenix, on the other hand, invigorated with a new sense of purpose, was cheerful and alert, slung rather casually in the low pilot's seat, his long limbs loosely arrayed in the limited space.

Fuzzy, he had explained as they had gathered and packed supplies for the trip, was his Zoid: a small feline species called a Helcat that specialized in optical stealth, which had been issued to him by the Imperial army when he had been enlisted. Willow continued to be amused by the Zoid's given name but opted not to comment on it. Fuzzy, at some point upon which Phoenix did not elaborate, had sustained damage, and after a long flight through the desert, had broken down, unable to go any further. With great sorrow, Phoenix had been forced to leave her behind, and struck out on his own. It was many hours later that Willow and Zeke had found him, unconscious, alone, and barely alive.

Willow couldn't fully remember where she and Zeke had gone that night, though she knew they had made it quite some distance away from Fort Zephyr. It had been about a half hour's travel northwest, but since they had alternated between galloping and walking, not to mention looping this way and that as they pleased, it was hard to say how many miles they had covered. Phoenix didn't seem especially concerned with this lack of specificity, however, and so they had packed provisions for at least a couple nights' desert wanderings, her companion whistling jovially as they worked.

Willow wiped a sheen of sweat off of her forehead now. "So how will you know when we reach the spot where we found you?"

"I kind of have this feeling that I'll just sense it. What I can remember of that place is burned into my memory, you know. The dune, the stars, everything."

Willow nodded. "I can imagine."

"I still wonder about those voices I heard sometimes. I heard them before I remember seeing Zeke looking down at me. Who could have possibly been out there with me?"

"Maybe you were just imagining them? I mean, you were hallucinating that night I brought you home. There may not have been any voices at all."

"I just can't seem to shake the feeling that they were real, though." He shook his head. "But you're right. They probably weren't."

Willow thought back to that first, difficult night, recalling the glassy eyes that could look directly at her yet not see her at all, the flailing limbs, the anguished cries. That name he'd been calling out, over and over. She peered curiously at her companion, and wondered if it were too personal a question to ask. Perhaps, if she were to ask, he would then ask prying questions of her in return, and she did not know if she was yet ready to answer them. "I guess we'll never know," she said after a moment, and Phoenix nodded.

They lapsed back into silence. Willow dipped in and out of a sort of twilit half-consciousness, the droning of the Gustav's wheels lulling her, the heat beckoning her to sleep. After a time, though, she became aware of a faint tapping sound, and when she opened her eyes, she saw Phoenix's fingers drumming busily on one side of the Zoid's control stalk. "You okay?" she queried through a yawn.

"Just thinking."

"Alright," she said, yawning again.

"Hey, look," he said suddenly at the same time that the Gustav's monitors beeped, and Willow sat bolt upright.

Just visible in the distance was a yellowish-green something. Willow squinted through the shimmering heat. "Is that a Molga?"

"Looks like."

"Should we fight it?" she asked uncertainly. "I've fought Molgas with Zeke before. I can beat it."

"It's not really doing anything, though. So far doesn't seem hostile."

The Molga just sat there, perched atop a distant dune. It was pointed in their direction, and rotated slowly to remain so as they passed by, but otherwise did not make any other move whatsoever.

"Maybe we could try to make radio contact?" Willow suggested.

Phoenix shook his head. "You seem to be really new at all of this stuff, so the short version is, that's usually not a good idea. There's a war on. We don't know who that pilot is. They don't know who we are. If they're content to leave us well enough alone, then that's good enough for me."

"Then why...why are they watching us like that?" She felt unnerved, looking at it on the Gustav's monitor, the creature vigilantly facing their direction no matter what. It was like being stared down.

"As long as they're not shooting at us, then they can watch all they like! Anyway, can you blame them? I'm used to the attention," Phoenix added, running his hand through his hair and grinning roguishly. "It's the burden of being a guy as dead sexy as I am."

Willow wanted to laugh, but the laughter felt stuck beneath the lump of fear caught in her throat, and so she watched the caterpillar Zoid on the monitor until it was too small to see and the Gustav's systems automatically switched the display back over to the usual operating status readouts. She tried not to think of Molgas and staring, but it was impossible. She shivered suddenly, curling her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on them, wanting to be as safe and shielded as possible from the memory of the bandits' hungry eyes. The heat in the cockpit felt like it had vanished, replaced by an air that was thin and dry and cold.

Her little action did not go unnoticed. "Hey." Phoenix looked over at her. "Are you alright?" She nodded, feeling small and miserable. "For the record," he continued, unconvinced, "I try really hard not to bombard you with questions all the time, since I know you've got your secrets and whatever. But sometimes, it seems to me...that you actually _want_ to talk about them."

"Sometimes I do," Willow said into her knees. Her voice was nearly lost in the hum of the Gustav's wheels. She closed her eyes. What had those men wanted to do to her?

If she learned the answer, would that make her feel better?

Or worse?

"Then how about this?" He looked over at her hunched form again. "You can tell me something. Whatever you want. And I'll tell you something in return."

"Can you ask me, instead?" It would be easier to talk, she thought, if she were given a direction to go in. She picked her head up off of her knees, and tucked her hair behind her ear. "And then I ask you something?"

"Sure. And if you don't want to answer the question, then you don't have to."

"Okay." She sat up a little straighter, leaning back against her seat, although she kept her legs pulled up close.

"My first question," Phoenix said carefully, "is this: where did you get this Zoid?"

She had been expecting a question about where she had come from or from whom she was hiding, and was therefore startled. His question was both easier and more difficult than those. "You mean Zeke?" she asked, although she knew he didn't.

"No. This Gustav. I find it interesting that it's your Zoid, because I don't think you know how to pilot it. At all."

She had tried to hide this fact from him, letting him take the lead during their trip preparations, but he was, as usual, unerringly observant. The truth was, when she had opted to keep the Gustav instead of burying it like its badly damaged counterparts, she had been forced to use Zeke to awkwardly push and pull it into the hangar for storage. It would have been a lot easier to simply drive it in there, of course, but once it had been righted and she'd looked into the cockpit to ascertain how similar its controls were to her Command Wolf's, she'd found she was unable to sit in that same seat the short bald man had sat in. His sweaty palms had been on that control stalk, those same sweaty palms that had run roughly over her arms and shoulders and become entangled in her hair.

"I don't," she said finally, in answer.

"Would you like to tell me about how you got it?" Phoenix asked, his tone placid and unhurried, his hand suddenly, lightly, on her arm. She did not jerk away, though, because it was so different from how the bandits had touched her. Phoenix's touch was kind and reassuring. Stabilizing. She felt brave enough to speak, knowing he was there beside her.

"Bandits came to Fort Zephyr one night last year," she began, taking a deep breath. That was what she needed to call her home, she had found, despite knowing its real name now. It would always be Fort Zephyr to her. Phoenix did not correct her, so she continued, "They had this Gustav, and two Molgas, and two other Zoids. I don't know what they're called. Gray dinosaurs, littler than Zeke. Walked on two legs."

"Sounds like Godoses."

"Maybe. I don't know. Anyway, the bandits found Fort Zephyr and they found my food stores. I hadn't known they were there because I was all the way on the other side of the base. I was walking home and saw there was light coming from Fern's house -"

"Fern's house?"

"It's...it's the little house, at the south end of the big street, right on the edge of the desert. I named it after my sister, because she had worked in the greenhouses, and I found seeds in there one day…"

Phoenix nodded. He knew immediately which house she meant. He had seen the way she looked at it.

"One of the bandits found me and chased me and caught me and dragged me into the house where they were all at the table, all eating my food, and they tied my hands behind me and they were all looking at me in this horrible way…" Her voice sounded ragged. She closed her eyes, not wanting to see their cold expressions, but their faces were already there in her mind.

Phoenix thought he knew where this story was going, and he wasn't sure he could bear to hear what they had done to her. The Gustav began decelerating without his realizing it. "Willow," he said, the word catching in his throat.

But she couldn't stop now; the words were pouring out of her. "One of them choked me and I thought I was going to die, but then he let go and dropped me on the floor like - like I was nothing, and I sat there and waited for them to get drunk and I found this sharp spot on the hearth and I used it to saw through the ropes." She inhaled deeply, swiping the back of her fist almost violently against her eyes to brush away the tears that were forming. "I escaped and it was dark and they couldn't find me or figure out where they were going, but I could. I ran to get Zeke and before they had a chance to find where I'd gone I was attacking their Zoids, all five of them, and Zeke was strong and brave and we beat them, and the bandits tried to run back into the base but I couldn't - I couldn't let them, it was my home and I would never find them again but they would find me, I just knew they would, and so I - I shot them, Phoenix, I killed them, there were six, and I killed them all. Zeke's cannons. Boom. Gone. All gone." She impatiently smeared away the tears again, and then just sat there, panting, the story out at last. She couldn't believe she had said all of that. It was horrible to relive, even fleetingly, but there was relief to be found, too, to have told someone else, to have unburdened herself of those memories.

The Gustav had come to a halt. Willow looked ahead through the canopy's glass at the fantastic colors of the sunset-blazed horizon, all melting into one another so perfectly that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the next began. She glanced left through the glass towards the setting sun, hanging low over the far-off dunes, then slid her gaze to her right, to Phoenix. He was looking at her with an expression she couldn't quite read; it seemed to be many things at once. The slanting sunlight lit his hair a flaming orange.

He licked his lips, saying nothing for a moment. He seemed to be breathing hard. Then, softly, he said: "Thank you."

"For - for what?"

"Well, for having enough faith in me to tell me all of that, but moreso...thank you for saving me that night, and not just running away."

"Why would I have run away?" But she already knew the answer.

"Because why would you trust anyone, after what you've been through? Especially a man?"

She paused, thinking back to Dan. "Not all men are like that." Her memory of his kind face wavered like rippling water, his visage fading in the passage of time.

"No, they aren't." He eased the Gustav forward again, resuming their progress across the desert. "But many are. You're amazingly brave."

Willow wanted to ask him if he knew what those men had wanted from her. She felt sure he would be able to tell her. But fear choked off her words. "I - I don't really feel that brave, you know," she said instead. "I was so scared that night. And - and I'm still afraid of them now, even though they're dead." She took a shuddering breath and looked at the setting sun again. Her voice was small. "I still get nightmares about them."

"That was probably the most terrifying experience of your life," Phoenix said. Willow didn't correct him. "But you got through it. You survived. The thing is, though, that that isn't even the whole story. Do you know what the most important part of your story is, besides the survival itself?"

She shook her head.

"You survived with your kind heart intact," he said, pointing to her chest, where she could feel her heart beating resolutely inside. "You felt afraid then, and sometimes you still feel afraid even now. But you never let the fear rule you. Your heart does, just like it always has. That's why you saved me that night, even though you didn't know anything about me. Even though I could have been just like them."

Willow stared at her knees, taking this in.

"You're so much stronger than you even know," Phoenix continued, almost to himself. "Maybe someday you'll realize that."

"Thank you," she whispered, and she felt his left hand on her shoulder again, warm and gentle. And with that kind gesture, she knew she didn't want to talk about it anymore. Not because she was too afraid to continue discussing it, but because she finally felt okay enough not to. Gesturing through the canopy glass, she asked, "Do you recognize any of this place?"

Phoenix looked around them. It was the same featureless desert as ever. Except, he saw, for one particularly tall dune to the west a few miles; it stood above the sea of low rolling hills around it like a small giant. Willow was looking at it, too. "There," she said. "We found you on top of a very tall dune just like that one. That's where we saw the mirage."

"I had climbed to the top of the tallest dune I could see," he murmured, recalling. "I'd hoped to spot some kind of settlement, anything but more desert."

Phoenix steered the Gustav over to the tall dune's side, then popped the canopy glass open. A fresh desert breeze, cooling now as daylight faded, swept around them and they turned their faces towards it gratefully. "Let's camp here for the night," he said. "If this is indeed the right place, then I know the direction I came from now. It shouldn't take us long to find Fuzzy in the morning."

Willow nodded.

Wordlessly, they unpacked what items they would need for a night spent under the stars: Phoenix arranged rudimentary beds for them both out of blankets, while Willow began boiling water over a portable stove to cook rice they would add to canned beans and tomatoes. Zeke, lolling drowsily on the first of the two rolling platforms the Gustav had been towing, rested his chin on his paws and observed the goings-on with mild interest.

When supper was prepared, Willow and Phoenix sat near the stove and the pale light it cast, both thinking separately of her little cottage and the cheerful lamp on the table within. Willow wrapped one of the blankets over her shoulders to ward off the desert's night chill, and took a bite of her food. Its warmth was pleasant, and she wondered how she had gotten through those several nights so long ago now, digging endless graves in attire woefully inadequate for the temperature.

"It's your turn," Phoenix said, interrupting her thoughts. He stirred the rice mixture in his tin cup and looked up at her, waiting. He looked so handsome in the low light, and she knew what a dangerous thought this was.

Diverting her attention, she blurted with no forethought whatsoever, "Who's Heinrich?"

Phoenix's hand, and the spoon in it, froze. He looked stricken. "How do you know about Heinrich?" he asked, his voice low and nearly lost in the desert wind. He stared at her as though amazed to see her seated there across from him.

Had she made a terrible mistake? "Well," she faltered, "when you were sick that first night, you were completely out of your head. You were yelling in a language I couldn't understand - I guess it was Guylic - but you...you kept repeating that one word, 'Heinrich,' and I realized it was a name." Zeke shifted position, resting his chin on his other paw now. "You sounded so...so achingly sad." She paused, then added softly, "Remember, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

He shook his head, looking down at his supper, but when he lifted his head, she could see even in the faint light that there were tears in his green eyes. "Something tells me, you're not going to go running to report me to the army," he said, a hint of a sniffle punctuating his sentence. "Heinrich is my brother. I - I haven't seen him in five years."

"Because you were in the army?"

He nodded, setting his cup down. "I was conscripted just a couple of months after the cataclysm. In the Empire, to resist enlistment is considered treason and punishable by death. They didn't care who you left behind, because they needed able-bodied people to help clean up and protect the provincial capital, Guygalos. It's a city very far north of here." When Willow looked confused, he added, "Those paranoid idiots assumed the Republic would exploit the chaos and damage from the meteorites to press their advantage and take over. Conveniently forgetting, of course, that the Republic was in complete disarray, as well."

Willow remembered Dan's description of the devastation the meteorites had wrought in his village. "And you had to leave Heinrich behind?" she asked. "What about your parents?"

"Gone. They died during the cataclysm. They were in the barn stacking wheat and that's what got hit. Just collapsed right on top of them. That...that left only Heinrich and me. I was eighteen and just what the army was looking for. Heinrich was only six." His voice wavered. "Both parents dead and the only family he had left in the world getting shipped off to join the military."

"But how could they do that? How was he supposed to take care of himself?" Willow cried. The injustice was breathtaking.

Phoenix shrugged. He bit his lip and took a long, shaky breath. "There were lots of new orphans after the cataclysm, you know? They were sent to orphanages run by the state to be looked after. Heinrich was herded off with the rest of them, I suppose." The grief shadowing his bright face pained Willow to behold.

"You were trying to get back to him that day, weren't you?" she asked.

He nodded. "The day I left, a few of the guys in my unit were talking about some gossip they'd heard, about how bad those orphanages were. One far north from here had burned down and killed all these kids, and once I heard that, I couldn't take it anymore. I got in Fuzzy and just ran. Some soldiers were sent out after me to stop me from escaping, and they damaged her leg. But she's a trooper, you know, she knew I needed to get back home and so she lost them in a forest a few miles from my base and then kept right on going for a long, long time. When she couldn't go any further, I was forced to leave her behind." He smiled then, tears still glistening at the corners of his eyes. "Heinrich's the one who named Fuzzy, by the way. She didn't have a name at all, was just called EZ-023-4896, until I got a letter from him one day when I was in basic training, the only letter I ever got from him. He said, 'I don't know what kind of Zoid you have, but you should name it Fuzzy.' So I did."

"You need to get Fuzzy back so you can go find Heinrich and be together again," Willow said sadly, understanding it all now.

Phoenix nodded again. He looked down at his feet, food forgotten, and Willow thought he might cry. But then he looked up and smiled at her; it was a smile that said he was used to fording through the pain. "So now you know," he said softly. "You've been harboring a deserter. I don't think the Imperial army will look kindly on that fact when they come for me."

"They'll have to get through Zeke and me first," Willow retorted fiercely, jabbing her thumb into her chest.

Phoenix looked startled for a moment at such a proclamation, then laughed. "I certainly wouldn't want to go up against you two, that's for sure." Zeke growled appreciatively at the compliment, and Phoenix laughed again.

The night air was very cold now, and he noticed her starting to shiver, her meal no longer warming her. "Shall we turn in soon, then? We can get an early start tomorrow. We'll find Fuzzy before you know it."

She nodded, teeth chattering, and they gathered up their dishes and utensils and extinguished the stove.

Settled in her improvised bed, Willow stared up into the deep black cloak overhead, her chilliness somewhat soothed by the comforting presence of the stars. A few feet away, Phoenix folded his arms behind his head and let out a long sigh. "They're beautiful tonight."

"They always are," she said feelingly. Zi's two moons hovered behind them, and she tilted her head back to gaze upon their familiar orange glow. She wanted to ask him about the cataclysm, but based on the global extent of the damage, she would betray her origins if she were to express any of her ignorance of the event to him. Still, she wished she could; the subject held a horrid fascination for her. Despite learning of the meteorites almost as soon as her violent arrival on Zi, she had never stopped wondering about them. It was a disaster almost too big for her to comprehend; she, a descendant of a people whose planet had probably been completely destroyed by now, she, the sole survivor of a terrible cataclysm herself, simply could not imagine what had happened here only a few short years ago. Such devastation had surely changed who the Zoidians were as a people, not to mention forever altering the lives of individuals like Dan and Phoenix.

"May I ask a question now?" Phoenix said, rolling onto his side to face her and propping his head up on one arm. His visage was pale and comfortably familiar in the faint light.

"You just did," Willow teased. She bundled her blankets up closer to her chin, unable to warm up very much.

His eyes widened. "Maybe you've been spending too much time with me, to say something like that. Not that I can blame you for seeking out my company so much. I'm pretty great, I know." He winked at her, and she couldn't help but laugh.

"You never stop, do you?"

"Not really, no."

"Alright then, so what's your question?"

"If you could be anywhere right now, where would you want to be?"

Again, she had expected a question as to her past, and again, he had dodged. Why? Did he know how important her secrets were, how much of her and Zeke's safety hinged upon the sanctity of those secrets? Still, she answered without hesitation. "Among the stars."

His eyebrows raised, taking his little facial marking with them. "And what would you do up there?"

 _Be born, live for almost sixteen years with my friends and unorthodox family, read and learn and laugh and sleep and grow_ , she thought. But instead she said, "Listen." Somehow, she missed it up there; missed the calm, quiet darkness surrounding her ship, the asteroids and planets and stars, all silent sentinels, sailing serenely by.

"Who, or what, would you listen to?"

"The stories." She smiled up at the heavens. "The stars keep our stories, you know." She knew she wasn't making much sense, but Phoenix didn't make fun of her. Instead, he rolled onto his back again and looked up at the night sky with greater concentration, as though trying to listen from all the way down here. Zeke was looking up, too, also trying to listen, perhaps.

Willow shivered again. She was not used to being exposed for so long to the desert's night temperatures; by this hour she was usually sealed inside Zeke's cockpit, or safely ensconced in her cozy cottage.

"Are you alright?" Phoenix asked.

"Yes, I just can't seem to warm up. Do we have any other blankets?"

"I don't think we do, unless you packed some extras in a different spot than these."

"Oh." She burrowed down further, so that now only her nose and eyes were visible. Her teeth chattered.

"Oh goodness, you're a right little ice cube over there. Would it be...terribly awkward if I helped you keep warm? I'm a mite chilly, myself. I - I promise I won't do anything."

She thought about this, and realized, once again, that there were many, many things she did not understand. But she trusted him to "not do anything," whatever that was. "Okay."

There was a brief rustling sound in the darkness as he pulled all of his blankets closer, and heaped some of his on top of her. Then, very carefully, he lay himself down beside her, settling under the covers, too. "If you want, you can roll onto your side, away from me, and I'll hold you until you warm up."

She did as he suggested, and felt him shift nearer, the front of his body nestling close to the back of hers. He rested his forearm on her upper arm, his palm on the cap of her shoulder. She remembered when it had last been there, many days ago, when he had been regaining his strength and balance. His chin rested gently against the top of her head; she could feel his soft breath in her hair. The chattering of her teeth died away.

"Is this okay?"

"Yes." And it was. The extra blankets and Phoenix's body heat were warming her up nicely, and she felt comfortable and secure. And with that feeling came deep memories surfacing in her mind: of snuggling with her sisters, of Hen holding her close. And Dan, too, wrapping his arms around her, creating a space of warmth and light, just for her. It had been so long since she'd felt this way.

And there it was again: that fathomless ache for what was no more, what never would be again. Did this loneliness have no boundary?

"And are you okay?" he asked, these quiet words lightly dispelling the sadness swirling around her like a fog.

"Yes," she whispered. Because she was.

After some minutes, the rise and fall of Phoenix's chest against her upper back slowed, and his arm slung over her slackened. Yet she remained stubbornly awake, furiously blinking whenever her eyelids drooped, determined not to miss a moment.


	12. ZAC 2061: Year 2 - Chapter 8

**ZAC 2061: YEAR TWO**  
 _ **Chapter 8**_

The sun rose and the air warmed once more. Willow and Phoenix, amid awkward fumblings and shy smiles, packed their scattered belongings and headed southwest from the tall dune, as he recalled he had been oriented northeast after having to abandon Fuzzy.

Just as he had predicted, it did not take them long. A flurry of beeps filled the Gustav's cockpit about half an hour after their departure, and seconds later a long, low, sad sound, borne on the wind, reached their ears.

"She's here!" Phoenix buried the pedal and hustled the Gustav over the desert just as quickly as it could go. "I'm coming!" Seconds later, a large red and gray creature, half-buried in the sand, came into view over a dune. "Fuzzy!" he cried ecstatically. He ground the Gustav to a halt beside it and dove so quickly out of the cockpit that he almost tripped, while Willow climbed out more carefully. He ran over to his Zoid, hugging her paw, placing his cheek against her muzzle. Fuzzy, Willow saw now that the creature had sat up more, was most definitely feline, of a sleek design and noticeably smaller than Zeke. Fuzzy let out a loud, happy growl; it sounded similar to, but higher than, Zeke's. Willow hung back, giving them both some space for their joyous reunion.

After a couple of minutes, Phoenix at last turned to her. There were tears in his eyes, and his face was the most radiant she had ever seen it. "I would like to introduce my partner," he said, his voice breaking a little with emotion. "Willow, this is Fuzzy. Fuzzy, this is my friend Willow. She - she saved my life."

"It's good to finally meet you, Fuzzy," Willow said, grinning and giving a little curtsy. Phoenix's elation was infectious. Fuzzy responded with a friendly vocalization; it reminded Willow of recordings she had heard of domestic cats back on Earth.

It took some time and a lot of help from Zeke to maneuver Fuzzy onto the Gustav's second trailer platform. Her right hind leg, while not utterly crippled, had obviously suffered extensive damage, and she had to resort to dragging herself painfully along with her front legs. However, between ransacked parts from the remaining Molga, and his own know-how, Phoenix seemed confident that he would be able to repair her leg.

The trip back to Fort Zephyr was pleasant. Phoenix hummed happily to himself as he drove the Gustav along. It was, Willow thought, the effect that wholeness could have on a person; not having Fuzzy had been, for him, like not having a limb. She knew she would feel the same way if she were ever separated from Zeke.

There remained now only reuniting with Heinrich, and Phoenix would feel complete again.

And to reunite with Heinrich, he would have to leave, and she would be alone once more.

"Teach me some more Helic?" she asked suddenly into their silence, wishing to banish all of these thoughts.

"Sure," he agreed easily. "We can practice a conversation. Do you remember the pleasantries we went over?"

"I think so."

He greeted her in Helic, she responded in kind, and so the rest of the trip went, the two friends chatting away, the Gustav trundling along, Zeke watching over Fuzzy, and the sun shining down on them all.

-.-.-.-

The trip back took only slightly longer than an hour, and was without incident. They brought Fuzzy immediately to Zeke's old hangar, and as it initially had been with the Gustav and Molga, relocating the big cat through Fort Zephyr was a difficult process. The street leading east towards the hangar from the wide main street could barely accommodate the Zoids, and at one point Fuzzy's errant tail knocked over a squat cottage on the south side of the path.

Once in the hangar, Phoenix climbed into Fuzzy's cockpit and had her drag herself off of the Gustav's trailer platform, and with difficulty she was settled into the middle of the room, where he would have plenty of space to work. "There, now," he reassured her. "We'll take good care of you." He turned to Willow. "Are you sure I can poach any of its parts?" he asked, gesturing to the Molga. "I don't want to take something you yourself might need someday, for Zeke."

Willow shook her head. "If Zeke got damaged badly enough to be unable to heal, I think I'd probably be doomed. I only know how to maintain him, and help him heal himself."

If Phoenix were curious as to why she knew how to pilot a Zoid but not accomplish any repairs beyond the most basic, he didn't let on. "Well, thank you then," was all he said.

Willow nodded. "I'm going to go water my garden and see how the veggies are coming along. Maybe something there can be used for our lunch."

Phoenix, who was circling around Fuzzy and assessing the location and severity of her problems, declined this implicit offer. "I'm not hungry, so don't worry about me." Unfortunately, his stomach once again betrayed him with a loud growl.

"You were saying?" Willow asked puckishly, peeking her head around Fuzzy's paw to beam irritatingly at him.

"Go on with you now, the grown-ups are working," he muttered, waving her off. She laughed and went on her way.

Zeke was waiting for her at her garden, sitting patiently outside the tumbledown fence that still hemmed its borders. "Hey, buddy," she said, stepping over a broken crossbeam and commencing inspection of her produce. Nothing new had grown in their short absence with the exception of some tomatoes, which were steadily ripening, and some berries on some bushes in the corner of the plot. She had not planted those bushes, but the plant seemed very hardy, seeing as how it had not only endured complete abandonment after Zephyr's previous inhabitants had fled, but had somehow survived all the way until Willow's arrival. Now that the bushes were receiving regular waterings and trimmings, they had burst forth into a beautiful bounty, sprouting gorgeous, plump, wine-red berries that looked irresistible.

She popped a few in her mouth, savoring their rich, sweet flavor, and moved on to removing some weeds that had sprung up around her carrots. She thought about what Phoenix had revealed to her the prior evening, and mulled over the similarities between them. Both had, in their own ways, had their families abruptly ripped away from them - living, or dead, gone was gone - and been thrust into new and strange circumstances. She pulled another weed and set it atop the pile of the others to wither in the harsh desert sun, and wondered then if what she was doing to these fragile little lives was cruel. She, after all, was an outcast here, too.

Perhaps Phoenix would have some advice for her, on how to handle being forced to endure losses and relocation. But she would have to tell him her story in order for him to do that, and even though she now knew his big secret, even though she trusted him to a substantial degree, she didn't know if she yet trusted him with her life.

It was probably about lunchtime now, judging by the position of the sun, and time for an end to these circular ruminations. There was nothing here but the berries she could add to their meal, so she gathered a few more, using the hem of her shirt as an apron, and stood to climb over the fence rail and go to the hangar, where she could see how Phoenix was getting on with Fuzzy's repairs.

That was when the ground tilted several degrees beneath her.

She staggered and then held still, breathless and waiting. Was this her first-ever experience of an earthquake? Did they even have earthquakes on this planet?

The ground shifted again, this time the other way, leaving everything canted at a bizarre angle. It reminded her of the _Globally_ 's positioning upon crash-landing. "Zeke?" she said shakily. "Are you feeling this too?" Her own voice sounded warbly and distant.

Zeke had lurched to his feet. She turned slowly to look at him, confused by how big he had grown. He was somehow large enough to blot out the sun. He barked, and the sound was so enormous, so utterly physical, that she again nearly lost her balance on the ground tilted so crazily beneath her feet.

Zeke lowered his planet-sized head down to examine her more closely, then straightened up once more and barked again. And again. And again. Louder, louder, louder. Willow covered her ears against the cacophony.

"Willow!"

She heard Phoenix's voice and turned around. Far down the street outside the hangar, she saw a tiny figure. Zeke barked again, urgently, and Willow thought the very earth beneath her might crack open from the volume.

"What's going on? What's Zeke so upset about?"

The figure was jogging towards her. She squinted. Was it - could it be - ?!

"Hen!" she gasped. Her mother! She was alive! She was here, on Zi! How had this happened? Hadn't she, Willow, cradled Hen's face in her very hands and kissed her cold cheeks before her sending off into the darkness of empty space?

"Willow, what's going on?"

Why was her mother speaking with Phoenix's voice?

Hen drew closer. Zeke barked again, and Hen looked from him back to Willow.

"Are you okay?"

Willow's face suddenly felt very hot. "What...what are you doing here, Hen?" she murmured. "Are you here...to help me?" Her stomach roiled like a sandstorm. "Help me…" Her hands, holding up the hem of her shirt, loosened of their own accord, and the berries she had gathered tumbled to the parched earth below. Hen looked down at them and then back at her in horror. Hen's face had blanched white, her strangely green eyes wide and terrified.

Everything suddenly surged upwards violently, and Willow crumpled to her hands and knees, vomiting with such a crippling ferocity she almost fainted. Stars danced at the edges of her vision.

"Willow!" Hen hurried over to her side. Zeke whined. Willow vomited again, her body contracting savagely with the force of the spasms. She heard Phoenix's voice from somewhere miles away: "Okay, okay. You're okay. Come on, I've got you. Hold on. Hold on. Stay with me…" The last thing she remembered was Hen gathering her into strong arms, and then everything went black.


	13. ZAC 2061: Year 2 - Chapter 9

**ZAC 2061: YEAR TWO**  
 _ **Chapter 9**_

Willow was standing at the top of a tall dune in the middle of the Elemia Desert. Night had deeply fallen, but she was not lost in darkness: three silver moons shone down on the sepia landscape, deep seas of stars shimmered overhead, and above and around her were the twinkling lights she and Zeke had seen the night they'd found Phoenix. The desert mirage was standing directly over her; she sensed its four strong legs surrounding her, shielding her, keeping her safe.

"Hold on."

She turned her head up to the mirage and the moons and the stars, listening.

"Don't let go."

When she looked ahead of her again, Dan was standing there. His face, though shrouded in darkness, was caring, concerned, loving.

"You came back for me," she whispered.

"Of course I did," Dan said, although it was Phoenix's accent and husky voice reaching her ears. Why?

"Please don't leave me again."

"I won't. I promise I won't."

"I've been so lonely…"

"I know." Dan took her in his arms and she relaxed into them. Finally, home. "Can you tell me how many?" he asked her.

"Hmm?"

"How many did you eat?" She didn't respond. She did not want to talk, did not want to move, just wanted to remain here, cocooned in his embrace. "Willow." It was still Phoenix's voice. He sounded frightened, insistent. "I need you to answer me. How many did you eat?"

"How many what?"

"The berries. How many berries did you eat, Willow?"

"I don't know," she murmured. She went to nuzzle her face into Dan's chest, but he shifted away to hold her at arm's length, his hands on her shoulders. He stared into her eyes, his face morphing until she realized she was now looking at Phoenix. His bright emerald eyes were flashing and scared.

"Stay with me, Willow. How many berries did you eat?"

She tried to recall. Thinking was a struggle; her mind was muddled and slow. How long ago had she even eaten those berries, anyway? It had to have been years. What did it matter anymore?

And where had Dan gone? And Hen?

"Six? I don't remember now."

Relief washed over Phoenix's face at her answer, and now he slowly faded away into the night until Willow was left alone again, although not quite alone, for she had the moons and stars and mirage for company.

"Hold on," the ethereal voice said above her. "You need to keep holding on. No matter what."

"I will," she replied softly, and the darkness of the sky melted downwards, covering everything she could see, and then all was quiet and still again.

-.-.-.-

Willow opened her eyes, blinking. The first thing she saw was her lamp, burning cheerfully on the table in the middle of the room. She registered Phoenix's pale face next; he was seated at the table and watching her intently with those otherworldly green eyes of his. She herself was tucked snugly into her bed, a cup of water and an empty bowl on the table beside her.

"You're awake," he said simply. She nodded slowly, testing how it felt to move her head. Even this small motion was dizzying, but not cripplingly so. "How are you feeling?"

"Hollow," was all she could think of to say, though it was true. She felt so empty, she could probably float away in the next burst of desert breeze.

"Is there anything I can get you right now?" He moved over to sit at the foot of her bed, and rested his hand on one of her ankles under the blankets. "Water?"

She shook her head, carefully. "No. Thank you." She looked over at the lamp, shining so brightly it almost hurt her eyes, then shifted with some difficulty to look at Phoenix. "How long have I been out?"

"You were going back and forth between hallucinations and unconsciousness for a good seven hours, then you've been sleeping it off for another six or so."

Willow blinked, startled. "What...what happened to me?"

Phoenix was gazing steadily and expressionlessly at her. Was she imagining things, or did he seem angry? "Well, you consumed approximately six apian berries, and had you eaten even a couple more, it likely would have been fatal. You're lucky you vomited most of them out before they had a chance to really get to work."

"'Apian berries'?" she echoed. "I'm...I don't really know what those are. Do you mean the little bushes in the corner of my garden?"

"Willow, we really need to have a talk. When you get your strength back up." He ran a hand through his hair, agitated. "You almost died back there, okay? You almost died." He exhaled slowly, his eyes focusing on something far away for a few moments, then he seemed to come back to himself, patting her foot under the blanket a couple of times. "Why don't you try and get some rest, and we can talk again in the morning. You're not out of the woods yet. Whatever you need, you just let me know, alright? I'm not going anywhere."

"Okay," she said, bewildered. Her throat hurt, her brain hurt, and her eyelids were already growing heavy again as he stood to return to his vigil at the table. "I'm sorry."

When he turned to look back at her, the fondness written on his ashen face was almost heart-rending. "Go to sleep."

Lacking the strength to disagree, she closed her eyes and let the exhaustion overtake her.

-.-.-.-

Willow awoke hours later as a silent dawn was creeping over the desert dunes. She lay still for a time, listening to the omnipresent wind sigh around the eaves. Her rest had helped; she felt considerably more alert. The events of the past eighteen hours were foggy in her memory, but sharpening as the minutes passed and awareness slowly filtered back in like morning light.

What she understood clearly, now, more than anything else, was that she had guarded her secrets carefully, and doing so had nearly cost her her life. She didn't want to hold these secrets anymore.

She sat up gingerly and looked around. The lamp was still burning, faithfully throwing its light into a steadily brightening room. And Phoenix was still at the table, where he had fallen asleep slumped forward with his head in his arms. Swinging her legs over the side of the bed, she carefully stood, paused to allow a wave of dizziness to pass, then gently padded the few feet over to him. She almost didn't want to wake him, so deeply asleep was he after what had undoubtedly been an exhausting night, but apparently he sensed her, for he stirred and lifted his head after a moment, blinking. Upon registering her presence, and the additional fact that she was out of bed, his eyes widened and he clumsily got to his feet. "Willow?" He shook his head, struggling to clear away the sleepiness.

"In the flesh," she replied with a feeble grin.

"Were you awake long? I'm sorry, I must have nodded off." He put both his hands on her shoulders and looked her up and down intently, chewing at his lip, appraising her. "How are you feeling?"

"Weak," she admitted, "but lots better."

"Then...then you made it," he said, his voice cracking slightly. He surprised her by pulling her close to him in a tight hug. "I was so scared I'd lose you," he whispered into her hair.

Willow closed her eyes and allowed herself to be enveloped in the warm embrace. Her heart beat slowly, and she let several long breaths pass before she said, "I think I'm ready to have that talk now." Any residual fears she had once had of telling him the truth had dissipated, and even without having said a word, she could already feel that crushing burden beginning to lift.

"Are you sure?" he asked immediately. "You seem a little wobbly. We could wait."

"I'm sure. It's important."

Phoenix nodded. "Okay." He let go of her and, circling her wrist lightly in his long fingers, he led her over to the edge of the bed, upon which they both sat down. "I'm listening," he said, and then he leaned back against the headboard, watching her, bright-eyed and waiting.

Willow closed her eyes and took a deep breath, centering herself. And then she started to talk, letting the words flow of their own accord, beginning at the beginning: Earth, deterioration, the Incognitus expeditions. Being born among the stars, soaring across the galaxy, decades of humans living and thriving and suffering and dying on their lonely little spacefaring islands. The approach to the new planet, the tragic murders, the crash, the burials, and then the unexpected gift of a Republican soldier named Dan showing her kindness when she had thought she was all alone in the universe. The second gift of piloting lessons, and then the third gift of Zeke, who was not only a protector but a friend. The planned abandonment here in this sand-blasted and solitary ruin, the crushing loneliness, but the gardening, reading, and learning, too, then the bandits, and then Phoenix himself, not only providing her the joy of companionship, but helping her to trust others again.

When she stopped speaking a long time later, dawn had given way to strong morning light, her head was swimming, and her breath seemed to have entirely left her. She leaned back dizzily against the wall, and after a moment, finally dared to meet Phoenix's eyes.

He was staring at her, quite speechless. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, still staring. Long seconds passed.

"I...really wish you would say something," she mumbled nervously, fiddling with the ends of her hair.

"I always knew you were something special," he finally said under his breath, almost to himself, then he blinked and shook his head. "Everything you just told me...this...this explains everything."

"What do you mean?"

"Where do I even begin?" He was speaking rapidly now, ticking off his fingers one by one. "You don't know the first thing about Zoids except how to pilot the one in your possession. You speak the Common Tongue but couldn't comprehend either of the most common languages. You kept your secrets safe and hid yourself from outsiders in an abandoned ruin, except you didn't know where you were. And you ate a species of berry that literally everyone on Zi, even young children who can barely even speak yet, knows is highly toxic and usually fatal." He ran his hand through his hair, mussing it, and looked out the alcove's small window. "I just...wow. I'm trying to process all of this. What you've seen, what you've done. You crash-landed on an alien planet _completely alone_ and yet here you are, not just surviving, but thriving. You even made this sad little base a home when it's been abandoned for so long." He looked back at her, eyes wide. "You're not even _Zoidian_!" She shook her head. "I've never met an Earthling before. At least, I don't think I have. You look just the same as we do!" He narrowed his eyes then. "Oh, no. Please don't tell me you're pulling my leg here. I mean, I know I'm gullible, but this would be the stupidest thing I've ever fallen for."

Willow shook her head again. "You can ask Dan yourself - he saw my wrecked ship. I wish I were joking, to be honest. My life wasn't supposed to have gone like this. I wasn't supposed to have to figure everything out on my own."

"But you did, and boy did you ever! You're a survivor, Willow. Don't you see that?"

She allowed herself a small smile. "I did have a lot of help, though."

"That Republican soldier…" He trailed off. She looked up and Phoenix was gazing at her with an expression she couldn't quite read. "You loved him, didn't you?"

"I still do."

Phoenix nodded and looked out the window again, a melancholy briefly shadowing his face, then vanishing as quickly as it had come. "I thought so. I'd throw in some joke here about how that explains why my overwhelming wit, charm, and dashing good looks have failed me for the first time in my entire life, but it somehow doesn't seem like the right moment for that."

Willow didn't much feel like joking around, anyway. "Maybe he won't come back," she said sadly, looking at her hands in her lap.

"Why do you say that?"

She shrugged, still not looking up, afraid to say the words aloud, but saying them anyway because they were too heavy for her to hold on her own anymore. "Maybe he forgot about me."

"Good heavens, Willow!" Phoenix exclaimed. "There is no possible way _anyone_ could forget about you. Unless a Shield Liger stepped on their head or something," he added thoughtfully. "Was he around rampaging Shield Ligers as part of his military duties?"

"I don't even know what a Shield Liger is," Willow said, and then she started to cry.

"Oh, no no no, I'm sorry Willow, hey, I didn't mean to make you cry." Phoenix shifted over until his hip was right up against hers, and he put his arm around her. "I'm sorry, really I am, I shouldn't have joked about something like this."

She shook her head, scrubbing at her eyes with her fists. "No, it's not your fault, I just...I've been so lonely, for so long, and so scared. What if Dan doesn't care about me anymore? Once you leave I'll be alone again, and if he doesn't come back..." She put her face in her hands and sobbed.

"Oh, Willow." Phoenix pulled her close and rested his chin on the top of her head, rocking her gently. "Did he say he loved you, too?" She nodded. "Then that's all you need to know, my dear. Sometimes you just have to have faith in people. If this Dan guy is really as great as you made him sound, then he'll come back for you, just as surely as the sun rises. See?" He pointed out the window, and the sun, of course, had indeed risen, seeming to sit proudly atop the roof of a nearby building. He stroked her hair. "He's probably somewhere at a Republican base right now, thinking of you, missing you, hoping you're okay."

Willow sat quietly, leaning into him, sniffling occasionally as she pondered this notion. Her tears slowly dried. "Do you really think so?"

"I really do. And hey, you know what? I've got an old friend, who just so happens to owe me a favor, who just so happens to be a transporter. I can try to track her down when I leave here. If she still has the same routes as she did years ago, I'll be able to find her, no problem. It wouldn't be all that far out of her way to swing past here when she's next in the vicinity. She knows just about everyone in southern Europa, and she may very well know Dan."

"Would I be able to trust her? Only you and Dan even know someone lives on this old base."

"I'd trust her with my life. She's a good soul. True as they come." When Willow didn't answer, he added, "He'll be back for you. I have no doubt."

"How can you be so sure?"

Phoenix turned to her. "Listen to me, Willow. Listen real good. You…" He paused, looked down into his lap, then up at her again. "You're the kind of girl worth crossing a continent for. When I said I'd never met anyone like you, I really meant it."

"Thank you, Phoenix," she whispered, leaning into him again, this time wrapping her arms around his spare frame in a tight hug. "Thank you."

He put his arms around her as well. "And if that Mr. Dan breaks your heart, I'll break his legs." Willow laughed in spite of herself, and sniffled again. "And if that does happen, or if you happen to fall out of love with him at any point, and are in search of another strapping military lad who will adore and cherish you for the rest of your life, you just drop me a line, yeah?"

Willow released him from her embrace, tilted her chin up, and without even thinking, planted a kiss on his cheek. He flushed immediately and adorably, freckles vanishing into scarlet all the way to the tips of his ears. "You're a good friend, Phoenix," she said.

"Why, yes, I suppose I am," he replied, rubbing his cheek dazedly for a moment and then grinning at her. She had never loved his perfect little gap-toothed smile more than she did right then.

The lamp sputtered, and they both turned to it. "How are you feeling, hunger-wise?" he asked her, standing. "Up for eating?"

"I'm really, really hungry," she admitted.

"Music to my ears! I'll prepare you a feast fit for a princess. I've studied canned cuisine extensively, I'll have you know. One of my specialties is Years-Old Beans a la Phoenix. Famous all across Zi," he said with a grand flourish. Willow couldn't help but giggle. "What! You would mock my talents?" he cried, holding his hand over his heart. Willow giggled again and then shrieked, ducking out of the way of a pillow Phoenix tossed at her.

Together, they ate the simple fare that Phoenix did not so much prepare as open up and serve, and Willow wondered if this was what normal life on Earth might have been like: a quiet morning, the easy companionship of a friend.

He set up a fresh bath for her and kept her company from behind the same pile of rubble she had sat beside many days prior, when he had had his first bath not long after arriving.

When she was clean and clothed, he peeked over the topmost concrete slab and propped himself up on his elbows. "So, I was thinking. How about I teach you some repair basics while I work on Fuzzy today?"

Willow wrung cold water out of the ends of her hair, and thought of how, in the atrium, they were situated almost as far from Zeke's old hangar as was possible within the confines of the ruin. While vastly improved from the state she'd been in the previous night, she was still feeling weak and shaky. "It's kind of far," she said uncertainly, although the idea of learning more about how Zoids worked was almost irresistibly intriguing.

Phoenix did not answer her, but instead strode resolutely over. She squealed and laughed as he scooped her up in his arms. "Not to worry, my lovely Earth princess," he said with a wink. "This lowly Zoidian would be honored to bear you to the hangar!"

Willow shook her head, still laughing. "You are something else, Phoenix."

"I know," he replied cheerfully as he stepped out of the atrium. "Wanna come, Zeke?" he called over his shoulder. A whirring of gears was heard presently, and Zeke fell into step alongside Phoenix as he set off down the wide main boulevard.

Willow wriggled a little bit. "I can probably walk, you know."

"Nonsense!" He hitched her up some, solidifying his grip. "Earth princesses must ride in style."

"Then wouldn't I be better off piloting Zeke?"

"Ouch."

Her laughter rang out down the street. "If it means that much to you, then…"

"Honestly, Willow, even though I still haven't even gotten all of _my_ strength back, you're as light as a feather. Are you sure you're eating enough?"

That made her think of her garden just then. She wrapped her arms around his neck to stabilize herself a little better. "I'd been meaning to ask you. What exactly are apian berries?"

"Death in fruit form," he deadpanned, then shook his head, muttering to himself, "Too soon. Not funny, Phoenix." He cleared his throat. "Well, they're a part of almost all ecosystems on our planet. They're called that because bees use the plants' flowers to get most of the pollen they need, and birds also feed on the berries. Almost every garden in any climate on Zi will have at least a couple of apian berry bushes, to attract pollinators."

"So they're good for animals, but bad for humans? And Zoidians?"

"Most other animals can't eat them, either. Some people use the berries in extremely controlled quantities as a hallucinogen, but it's very easy to overdose and tolerance levels can vary, so most don't."

"And everybody knew all that but me," she said.

"Yup, pretty much." He beamed irritatingly at her, and she laughed again. "Seriously, though, you really scared me yesterday, when I saw that you'd been holding some. I get now why you had to keep your secrets, but...I wish I'd known, I wish I could have warned you before all of that happened. It never even occurred to me that someone who had made a home of this place wouldn't have known about apian berries."

"And it never occurred to me that someone would plant a highly toxic bush in the middle of a farm."

"You've got a point there."

Phoenix's long stride conveyed them swiftly to the old hangar, where Fuzzy, picking her head up from where she had been resting it on her paws, greeted them warmly. He helped Willow get comfortable leaning against one of the Gustav's wheels, and Zeke settled himself down nearby with a satisfied whuff.

Phoenix stood beside Fuzzy's damaged hind leg. "Okay. Zoid Repairs for Beginners, taught by the marvelous and brilliant Professor Phoenix," he said with a flourish, bowing. Willow clapped. He pointed to a cable exposed at Fuzzy's hock that was substantially larger than the others running alongside it. "See this cable here?" Willow nodded. "Think of it like a nerve. It's damaged, so Fuzzy can't feel or move her leg right now. We fix that, and almost everything else that's gone wrong will get fixed, too, in turn, by the Zoid's natural healing capabilities."

"How do we fix it?"

"Excellent question, my clever pupil." She made a face at him, and he grinned. "It's actually relatively simple, though. We can splice in some cable from the old Molga. Then, we'll make minor adjustments to some of her programming so that she can take care of the rest herself." Willow nodded again, and paid close attention as he talked her through everything he was doing.

-.-.-.-

Phoenix worked hard on Fuzzy's repairs all afternoon. Willow, still drained from her episode, was brought back to her cottage to rest after a couple hours. Phoenix joined her again that evening, around dinnertime.

"I'm home, darling!" he called loudly the moment he set foot in the door, as though Willow weren't five feet away in bed. "Did you miss me?"

She laughed, setting aside the book she had been reading. "Of course."

He came over and sat on the side of her bed. "Were you able to rest at all?"

"Yes. I napped for awhile and then have been reading for the last hour or so." She pointed at the blackletter text in the children's book beside her. "It's starting to come together more than it used to."

"That's because you're a smart little cookie," he said fondly, pinching her cheek. "Are you up for some supper?"

"Sure am. I've been waiting for you to come back!"

"Just so I could make you dinner? Are you sure that's the only reason?" He winked and stood up. "How about some tomato sauce on biscuits? It'll be sort of like pasta, right?"

"Sounds good to me."

After dinner, they meandered the short distance north up the main street to the edge of the desert to stargaze. This wasn't their usual spot, but Willow was still feeling tired. Zeke, accompanying them, obligingly lowered his head so they could both sit in the cockpit like the previous time. He sat back up once they were comfortably situated, and from this great height Willow could see for miles. The decimated former barracks crouched darkly in the distance, and she remembered the day she and Zeke had destroyed them, the day that Dan had taught her the Command Wolf's ultimate, and ultimately fatal, attack. "There may come a time when Zi needs a hero. When Zi needs _you_ ," he had told her then, and she wondered what he had meant by that. What effect could she, just one little inhabitant of Zi, possibly have on this vast, alien world?

She looked across the pilot's seat to Phoenix: handsome Phoenix with a little unconscious smile playing about his lips as he gazed heavensward, dear Phoenix who would almost certainly not still be alive today were it not for Zeke, and a fairy tale that maybe wasn't a fairy tale after all, and her. She knew, then, what Dan would say if he were here sitting with her now: "Heroism isn't just about saving the entire world." It could be smaller than that, though no less courageous. She smiled to herself. Perhaps she was a hero, too.

"When you look at the stars, do you see home?" Phoenix asked her, shaking her out of these reveries.

She looked up. "I do. I remember...looking out the window of my ship, and seeing asteroids and planets and so many stars, just flying by. It seemed, then, like we would never get to Incognitus. And now here I am, on the ground instead of the heavens, and it feels like all of that time in space just passed by in a blink."

"Does Zi feel like home to you now?"

"No. Not yet. Maybe someday it will." She tilted her head, studying him in the pale starlight. "Do you miss your home?"

He nodded gravely. "Every day."

"And you haven't been back in five years?"

He sighed heavily; it was the sigh of someone carrying a backbreaking burden. "No."

"You will soon. I just know you will."

"And what about my brother?"

"You'll find him. And then you'll be together again, just like you were meant to be."

"I hope so. He'd be eleven now, can you believe that? I've missed so much of his growing up." Phoenix ran a hand through his hair absently, still studying the stars. "I like to think that he's out there somewhere, looking up, too. That these same stars are giving him the strength to keep going."

"Just imagine your thoughts traveling on moonbeams, up into the sky, and then down to wherever he is," Willow said reverently, her eyes shining. "He'll feel them."

Phoenix looked over at her, his face etched with shadows and sadness. "Maybe."

"I...really believe this now, after looking back at everything that's happened," she said quietly, holding his gaze. Her breath came calmly and steadily. "That things will work out in the end."

His eyebrows went up, sending his sun marking up with them. "What makes you say that?"

"Because I had nothing when I crashed here. Everyone I had ever known was gone. I was all alone. And now…" She trailed off, smiling shyly.

He waited, watching her.

"And now I've realized...I'm strong, and I'm not alone anymore. I never will be again." She affectionately stroked what part of Zeke's muzzle she could reach by leaning backwards a little, but her dark eyes never left Phoenix's.


	14. ZAC 2061: Year 2 - Chapter 10

**ZAC 2061: YEAR TWO**  
 _ **Chapter 10**_

Phoenix stood facing Willow at the northern end of Fort Zephyr's wide street. The wind tossed his copper hair playfully, though he took no notice. Fuzzy, who was now back at full operational and offensive capacity after his ministrations these last couple weeks, sat behind him, her nose lifted to the breeze. The sun hung low over the western horizon.

"So...you're sure about this Dan guy?" he asked, hopefully.

Willow laughed. "No. But like you said, sometimes you just need to have faith in people."

"I suppose I did say that," he acknowledged, rubbing the back of his head. "Well, I can admit when I'm outmatched."

She laughed again, a quiet laugh nevertheless edged in melancholy, and a long silence descended between them.

"I'm no good at this part," he said softly, after a time.

"Neither am I." She held her upper arms in her hands, shielding her chest, trying to keep something out, or perhaps trying to keep something in.

"You won't be completely alone," he said, his eyes shifting over to Zeke, who was lying faithfully beside her.

"I know."

"I'm sorry, Willow. I don't want to leave you. You know that, right?"

"I understand why you have to go. Of course I understand. If one of my siblings were still alive, I'd be doing anything I could to find them, too. He's all you've got."

"Not quite," he replied affectionately, green eyes bright.

"Oh, Phoenix," she said sadly. "Take care of yourself, okay? Fuzzy, too. And tell Heinrich...tell him I said hello."

"I will. I'll try to send you a communication of some kind when I can. And you do the same."

She nodded, smiling bravely through a thin veil of gathering tears. "I promise. Goodbye, Phoenix."

He took her palm in his, bending forward in a gallant bow to plant a soft kiss on the back of her hand. "Should have done that a long time ago," he murmured. "Goodbye, Willow." With one last long look at her, weighted with words unspoken, Phoenix turned towards Fuzzy as the Zoid simultaneously crouched down, whirring open her metal canopy for him. He climbed in, and Willow waved as Fuzzy stood, turned, and went trotting off north, the sunset's light blazing bright on the cat's crimson legs.

Zeke lowered his head down beside Willow and gave a tiny growl, and she remembered. She settled herself into his cockpit and he stood; already Fuzzy's red and gray form was shrinking in the distance.

"Just like two years ago, remember?" Willow whispered, and Zeke answered with a soft vocalization. Of course he remembered; he hadn't forgotten Dan any more than she had.

When Fuzzy was no longer visible, Willow leaned back into the headrest with a sigh and closed her eyes for a moment, unable to ignore this new reality any longer.

She was alone again.

-.-.-.-

Phoenix had never felt so joyous and depressed, all at once, in his entire life. He was at the controls of his dear Zoid once again, and ahead, the twilit horizon beckoned with its promises. Somewhere, far from here, was an orphanage, and in that orphanage was his beloved brother, waiting for him. Sometime, not too long from now, he and Heinrich would be together again, and they would make a life for themselves somewhere. They couldn't go back home to the Empire, where he knew he would eventually be made to pay for his desertion, and so it seemed the only course open to them would be to become political refugees in the Republic. It wasn't going to be easy. But what did any of that matter now? Heinrich and Fuzzy were the only family he had left in the world, and as long as they were all together, anywhere was going to be home.

At the same time, Phoenix felt as though he had left a piece of his heart behind in Solas Base. He wasn't sure what type of love it was that he felt for that brave and beautiful Earthling girl, but it was indeed love, and he had never felt this way about anyone before. Sure, there had been other women in his life - sweet Cass from back home, a handful of other recruits as lonely and homesick as himself at his base - but, he understood now, the feelings he had had for them, even feelings he had once labeled love, were as nothing compared to the experience of having known Willow.

"It's going to take a long time to get over a woman like her, Fuzz," he murmured. Fuzzy, having only known Willow for a short time, nevertheless seemed to agree, for she nodded her head slightly as she trotted along, and gave a low purr.

Willow was the most courageous person he had ever met, he decided; even his desertion of service and frantic desert escape, which could be considered pure and valiant in a certain light, seemed small and meaningless compared to what Willow had gone through. For as alone as he had ever felt when separated from the only family he had left in the world, he, at least, still lived within a familiar civilization, among his own kind, on a planet that had always been his. What was it like to have your home, and everyone you had ever known, taken away from you in the span of mere seconds?

"Do you think she's going to be okay?" he wondered aloud.

Fuzzy replied with a confused little mew; she didn't know, either.

The cockpit radio, which Phoenix had left tuned to an occasionally-used alternative frequency in a half-hearted bid to avoid any unpleasant surprise encounters, crackled to life just then. Low, guttural voices, speaking in an uncommon rural Guylic dialect, filled the cabin. His breath caught in his throat.

"Nearly there. Stick to the plan or you'll regret it, you hear me? I don't want a spectacle. Clean and quiet. It's just our old Gustav and possibly a Command Wolf. Easy job."

"Roger that."

"They won't know what hit them."

"A surprise attack on the little brats! Revenge is so sweet."

"Are you sure you don't want to keep the girl alive for at least a little while, boss? We could have some fun…"

"No," the first voice barked, harshly. "We're all that's left of the gang now, and we have to do right by our fallen brothers. We'll just get it over with and then finally be able to move on with our lives."

"But-"

"I'm done discussing this. Radio silence!"

"Sorry, boss."

"Roger."

"Roger that."

The crackling ceased, and Fuzzy's cabin quieted again.

She had come to a dead standstill. Phoenix's head was swimming and his breath came in shallow gasps. "Fuzzy," he choked out dizzily. There were no other settlements for a hundred miles. He knew where those men were heading. He knew what they were about to do. "Run!"

The Helcat pivoted swiftly towards the pale southern horizon, and took off at a desperate gallop.

-.-.-.-

Zeke was tucked comfortably in his little den beside the Lake of Shining Waters. Willow was in her cottage at her table, writing furiously. Phoenix was a part of her story too, now, and she did not want to forget a thing. The lamp beside her burned brightly, and all that could be heard were the scritch of her pen across the paper, and the desert wind sighing around the eaves. Outside, she knew, were the innumerable stars and their two lunar sisters, watching over her. In spite of the sadness of her solitude, it was cozy and comfortable in here; she looked forward to a quiet night.

The sudden thunderclap of an explosion across town, then, startled her so badly that her pen left a wide slash of ink across the page. "What was that?!" she cried to Phoenix, although he, of course, was not there.

She ran to the door and looked out. Smoke was rising from a building on the eastern part of the base, near her garden. A whistling sound was heard presently, and then another explosion shook the ground beneath her feet. She didn't have time to think; her only defense was to get in her Zoid. She scanned the sky briefly for any more incoming fire, then dashed across the street to the atrium.

As she had expected, Zeke was ready for her, his head already low, the canopy swinging open the moment she appeared. She quickly strapped herself in and scanned his monitors for the location of their foe. Except there wasn't only one.

"Four?!" she squeaked, registering their presence to the northeast, outside of town. "How am I supposed to fight four Zoids all at once?" The last time she had fought a bunch of Zoids, she'd had the element of surprise on her side, but this time it had been used against her. Still, terrible odds or not, there was nothing to be done but go and face her attackers. If she remained cowering in here, Fort Zephyr would surely be leveled.

Perhaps she could still achieve at least some semblance of an element of surprise. Four Zoids were attacking Fort Zephyr, but even if they knew she had a Zoid with which to defend herself, they didn't, she assumed, know precisely where she was. If she planned well, she might just be able to take out one of the attackers, possibly two, before they had a chance to train their fire on her.

Willow could feel the tense energy crackling through Zeke's vast metal body; he was on high alert and ready to fight. Combat motivation was registering as very high. "Stay out of sight," she told him. Another explosion to the east rattled the ground. "Let's find out what we're dealing with first, and then we can figure it out from there." Zeke slunk carefully out of his side room and crouched at the northern end of the main street, remaining hidden behind an old storage facility. He peeped his head around a corner just far enough for the enemy Zoids to come into the view of Willow and his cameras.

"Look, another Command Wolf," she breathed, spotting the gold lupine creature standing ahead of the others. It was the only one currently firing. "And two Molgas and a scorpion kind of thing. That Command Wolf must be the leader. He'll be the hardest to take out." And just who were these people, anyway? Why were they attacking what the rest of Zi thought was an empty ruin? Unless...they knew it wasn't empty? But how could they know she was here? Had she somehow not noticed some recent aerial reconnaissance?

If they knew she was here, then this attack had been premeditated. They probably knew what type of Zoid she had, as well. She needed the element of surprise now more than ever; it was her only chance. She guided Zeke gently backwards, out of the attackers' possible line of sight. "Maybe...we'll let them think we're somewhere we're not," she mused, turning him around. "Stay as low as you can, buddy. But go quick. We don't have much time."

Zeke crept down the main street and turned east at Fern's house, past the cooper's and towards his old hangar. He then moved north a bit, towards the attackers, but remaining low so as to stay hidden behind Fort Zephyr's many tall structures.

"Alright, this spot should be good. Let's manually lock on to their location from here and send over a few rounds. If we're lucky, we'll do some damage, but if not, at least it'll distract them." Zeke's double beam cannons faced the band of Zoids outside of the ruin, and Willow squeezed the thumb triggers several times, creating a volley of shots that, from the Zoids' roars of surprise some distance ahead, indicated she had caught them off guard. "Okay, now go!" she whispered urgently. Zeke spun on his heel and hustled off towards the hangar, then west towards Fern's house, then north towards Willow's hut, staying in a crouch all the while. Numerous explosions near the old hangar told her they had fallen for the simple ruse - for now, at least.

At the north end of the main thoroughfare again, Zeke poked his head into view and they observed the goings-on for a few moments. Both Molgas were firing steadily now in the direction of the hangar, as was the scorpion. The Command Wolf was hanging back, turned alertly in the direction of fire.

Willow paid particular attention to the scorpion; she had fought Molgas before and knew what they were capable of, and, piloting a Command Wolf herself, she was familiar with this opponent, too. The scorpion was a new Zoid to her, however, and she needed to understand its movements and offensive capabilities. It had eight legs, a gun mounted on its forward-curled tail, and a pair of fierce-looking pincers. "I wouldn't want to get into close combat with that one," she told Zeke.

Time to think. Both Molgas were minor threats. They weren't fast enough to keep up with her, but would cause a huge problem over time if she ignored them in order to focus her attention on the other two. They would need to be eliminated first, and quickly, so there wouldn't be much time for her to be an easy target for the others. Both the scorpion and the Command Wolf made her nervous, but at least with the latter, she understood what she was up against; not so the former. Therefore, she would use her initial, and likely only, surprise snipe attack against the scorpion. If she could eliminate its tail gun, it looked like it would no longer be able to harm her without getting in close, and she was reasonably certain she was faster and more agile.

Still, the odds were stacked heavily against her.

"Okay Zeke," she said, closing her eyes and taking a deep, steadying breath. "We're going to do our best." He knew better than to snarl in response while hidden, but she knew he agreed and was ready. "Right. Let's take out that scorpion guy's weapon."

Willow very carefully aimed the monitor's crosshairs at the scorpion's tail-mounted gun, which was rather difficult because the pilot was firing it at fairly frequent intervals and it kicked back each time in mild recoil. Fortunately, he wasn't moving much, either, so the gun's range of motion was small. She wondered what these attackers were trying to accomplish, as the southeastern part of the ruin had to have been completely obliterated by now. Even the stored Gustav and its thick armor had probably been blown to smithereens under such a relentless assault. What was the point?

The attackers finally paused in their firing, perhaps to see if any retaliatory attacks were forthcoming from where they assumed she was, and this gave Willow the perfect lock-on she'd been waiting for. She squeezed the trigger several times and, without waiting to see if she'd hit her mark, drove Zeke swiftly out of their hiding spot.

There was a brief moment of chaos as the intruders registered both an attack from an unexpected direction and the presence of a charging Command Wolf, but after a quick scramble they regrouped to face her. Willow spared a glance at the scorpion as Zeke galloped towards the two Molgas, and her heart lifted at the sight of its stumpy tail, flailing helplessly as electricity hissed and spit from its tip. They might have a chance!

All four of the Zoids began firing at her as she approached, and as she shifted Zeke from side to side unpredictably to evade their attacks, she felt some hits connect, but not many. Monitors indicated only surface damage. Either these pilots were still a bit muddled from her surprise attack, or they had a fairly low level of skill.

"Okay Zeke, remember the last time we fought Molgas?" she asked. "Let's try that move again, except this time, let's get both at once!" Zeke bellowed in agreement.

Just as they closed in on the nearest Molga, the enemy Command Wolf fired its double beam cannons at them, at nearly point-blank range. Zeke dodged its fire and ducked behind the Molga, using it as a temporary shield, while he thrust his nose forward and latched on to the creature's tail with powerful fangs.

"Alright, you've got him! Do it, Zeke!" Willow shouted.

Zeke stood, bracing his front paws deeply into the sand, and tossed his head violently to the left, sending the squealing Molga flying through the air and straight into its companion. There was the sickening crunch of metal and shriek of shattering glass as one cockpit smashed directly into the other, and immediately both Zoids' command systems reported as frozen on Zeke's monitors. He roared in triumph.

The remaining two Zoids had ceased firing for a moment, and Willow knew they were struggling to register what had just happened. As the smoke and tossed sand cleared, the two faced the one, and Willow got her first clear glimpse of the pilots controlling the enemy Zoids. She was not surprised to see two older men with telltale black stripes down their noses. Bandits again. The Command Wolf's pilot stared at her, his expression shifting rapidly from shock to anger to angry shock once he saw whom he had been fighting. Zeke's cabin filled just then with enraged shouts in a language she didn't understand, although his message came through clearly enough.

"What? Are you surprised a girl can fight?" she said fiercely, although they, like the last group of outlaws, probably did not speak the Common Tongue. It didn't matter; there was courage in her voice and they would hear it. She would not be cowed by bandits ever again. She was too strong for fear now.

Another torrent of words, and she closed the communications link to the two Zoids. "Not worth my time," she told Zeke. "Let's finish them off." He pawed the ground impatiently, in complete agreement.

She settled back in her seat and watched both Zoids intently with narrowed eyes, attuned to the slightest motion that would betray their next move. She did not have to wait long.

The Command Wolf shifted its weight backwards just slightly, and that was enough: Zeke dove out of the path of its soaring tackle. He pivoted swiftly to face its exposed flank for a follow-through, but Willow had only enough time for one shot before Zeke suddenly howled with rage. The scorpion had moved in quickly behind them as they had been focused on the Command Wolf, and slashed Zeke's left hind leg with its pincers.

"Zeke! Are you okay?" Willow cried. The monitors showed significant damage: top speed down 17%, maneuverability down 36%.

The Command Wolf's pilot, meanwhile, had capitalized on her momentary surprise, and fired directly at Zeke's cockpit. In a reaction so swift it could only have been impelled by deep-seated instinct, Zeke wrenched the front of his body to the right to keep Willow out of danger, taking the hit on his left shoulder. He cried out once more, this time in both anger and pain.

Sweat dripped into Willow's eyes but she did not dare remove a hand from the controls for the split second it would take to wipe away. She locked on to the Command Wolf and fired repeatedly, watching in dismay as it dodged many of her attacks, although she did manage to graze its jaw. The scorpion, meanwhile, swung again at Zeke's hind leg, and Willow hopped him awkwardly out of reach, though this scarcely bought her any time: the arachnid pressed forward relentlessly.

Though Willow struggled valiantly to keep Zeke out of harm's way, it was a losing battle. He was difficult to maneuver, since he was holding up his injured hind leg, and his front left leg was now barely strong enough to support the extra weight. The evasive dodges that ordinarily came so naturally to her were almost useless now. And even as she somehow kept a watchful eye on all of Zeke's monitors and the two enemy Zoids circling her like birds of prey, a part of her brain wondered: what do I do now?

There was a sudden thundering boom, followed closely by the nearly deafening scream of tearing metal close at hand, and Zeke collapsed into the side of a low dune with an anguished cry, canted heavily to the left. Willow, thrown violently by his abrupt fall, dazedly rubbed the left side of her head where it had hit the canopy, and blinked at one of the few monitors that still remained online. Even in her befuddled state, it was clear what had happened: Zeke's left shoulder, after receiving another direct hit, had completely given out.

His right front leg pawed helplessly at the air as he keened - in anger, in agony, Willow knew not. It was hard to hear anything over the ringing in her ears. She shook her head, trying to clear it of the jumbled noise and chaos clogging it, but dark clouds were creeping steadily in along the edges of her vision. The Command Wolf and scorpion were closing in on her in front, savoring the last moments before the final blow. It was all over now. A tear she had not known was there leaked out of the corner of her eye. "I'm sorry, Zeke," she whispered, the words coming painfully slowly, like wading through thick mud. "You deserved a better pilot than me."

Just then, a feral shriek ripped through the ringing silence, and Willow blinked. Something - something she could barely see - went flying by in front of her and pounced on the scorpion, flipping it clear over. The hapless creature's legs flailed as it struggled to right itself. The Command Wolf didn't have time to react before it, too, was tackled to the ground. A fierce, high-pitched bellow nearly split Willow's eardrums, and the flash of muzzle fire from seemingly empty air preceded the enemy wolf's savage cry as its cockpit was hit point-blank in a vicious fusillade. Zeke's monitors registered nothing but the two enemy Zoids, and soon showed too that the enemy wolf had been stilled at last.

How hard had she hit her head? Was that an invisible Zoid that had come to her aid? Perhaps...it was the desert mirage? Trying to think felt like stumbling blindly through an endless fog.

"Willow!"

That voice crackling over her radio…

So familiar.

Phoenix?

"Willow! Can you hear me? Are you alright? Willow, answer me damn it!"

"Is that really you?" she murmured weakly. Alertness was returning slowly, like a trickle of water struggling to break through an obstacle so it could flow freely once again.

"Are you hurt? Can you-" His next words were cut off by a grunt of pain. She looked, but did not understand: the scorpion, now righted, was working mightily to keep control of something it had clamped in one of its pincers, although there was nothing whatever being held there that Willow could see. An image flickered - a mirage? - no, not a mirage. Fuzzy. The crimson cat blinked in and out of invisibility until that power seemed to leave her, and then there she was, quite visible now, writhing frantically to escape the vice-like grip the scorpion had around her torso. Sparks shot out of her body as she flailed, and Willow didn't know how much longer the desperate Helcat would be able to hold on as the scorpion squeezed her tighter and tighter.

The clouds around Willow's vision were returning again, and with them came soft twinkling lights, like the stars, but so much lower to the ground. Had the stars come down to Zi? Were they there to take her back into the night sky with her mother? Would Zeke and Phoenix and Fuzzy come too?

There was a momentary flash of white and red before her.

A voice she had not heard in two long years echoed faintly through her mind as a distant memory returned.

"You're not helpless now - you're going to survive." She closed her eyes and listened. "With Zeke with you, you'll have nothing to fear."

From whence came this voice, as familiar as her own body yet as indescribably, impossibly faraway as Earth?

"I broke my promise, Dan," she murmured in response. "I promised I would take care of Zeke, but I failed."

Cutting through the dark clouds closing in came the sound of Zeke growling.

Something flashed out of the corner of her eye; it was the image of Zeke on one of the cockpit monitors, and while it registered all the extensive damage he had sustained, there was something else: the image Zeke's mouth was blinking.

Ragnarok Fang.

"No, Zeke," she whispered sadly. "I don't care about myself anymore, but I - I won't do that to you."

The image Zeke's mouth blinked faster, more brightly. He growled again, pointedly, though it was barely audible over Fuzzy's distressed cries a short distance away. He wanted this; he didn't know what else to do.

"Keep going," came the voice of the terrestrial lights. The stars were all around Zeke's prone form now, and she knew the mirage was standing guard over them both. Its words fell lightly over them like a cool, soothing mist. "Don't give up. Hold on."

"I will," she said to the mirage and the stars and the black sky far above.

"Hold on," she said to Phoenix and Fuzzy. She knew they could hear her.

"Hold on," she said to Zeke. He was listening to her too, her dear friend, bonded to her forever with the force of a planet and the vastness of space and the faith of the stars. "Hold on."

He sensed her, could feel her reassurance and love.

He needed to protect his pilot.

He would do _anything_ to protect his pilot.

Zeke growled low, a struggling, laboring sound made with the finality of his strength.

His sighting monitor suddenly flickered back online. Without conscious thought nor even a moment's pause, Willow rotated his double beam cannons, aimed directly at the scorpion's cockpit, and fired. An explosion ripped through the creature's face and it collapsed to the ground, its pilot at last eliminated.

The stars around her faded. Silence reigned for only a split second before Fuzzy wrenched herself free from the enemy Zoid's grasp and galloped over to where Zeke still lay in the sand, her canopy rising.

"Willow!" Willow looked up and registered the presence of another dear friend, one she had thought only hours earlier she would never see again. She saw his familiar red hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, and his frightened green eyes, still so bright even in the starlight. He jumped out of Fuzzy's cockpit and ran over. "Willow! Open up!" His hoarse voice rang out across the desert's silence and stillness.

Her hand stretched carefully through the long void between her and the right side of the console, and her fingers' light touch found the canopy switch, the first control she had ever used in a Zoid. Zeke groaned, and the canopy glass swung slowly upwards.

Phoenix clambered halfway into the dangerously tilted cockpit and fumbled to undo her safety harness, freckled hands shaking. "Are you alright?"

She blinked at him. "Is Zeke okay?" Thinking hurt. Speaking hurt.

"He'll be fine, but right now I'm more worried about you."

"Fuzzy?"

He shook his head impatiently as he gathered her into his arms and then looked over first one shoulder, then the other, trying to figure out a way to safely maneuver onto the ground. "She's fine, she's fine."

"Did we...did we get them?"

Phoenix had evidently located a foothold, for he stepped down onto it, then made the short hop the rest of the way to the sand, being sure to cushion her neck and head from movement as much as possible. "Yeah, we got them. Although, really, it was mostly you. I can't believe you were able to take on so many at once." His glance cast over the fallen enemy Zoids scattered across the dunes.

"I can't keep fighting them off forever," she said softly. "It's just Zeke and me here." It wasn't fear she felt so much now as resignation to an unavoidable outcome: there was nowhere safe left for them.

"I don't think anyone else will be bothering you," he said, placing her gently on the ground, still cradling her head in one arm. Something in his voice caught her attention. There were questions she longed to ask, but her head was throbbing so painfully she couldn't think straight.

She looked up into his green eyes, still bright, though clouded with worry. Maybe this was an illusion, too; maybe her body was somewhere nearby, hovering close to death, and the desert mirage was giving her these comforting visions before she perished. In spite of her steadily building headache, she felt calm and serene, now that her friend had returned.

"Phoenix…" she whispered.

He shook his head. "Just rest, okay? I'm here. I'll stay awhile and take care of you. Zeke and Fuzzy, too. Don't worry." He tenderly brushed her dark locks back off of her forehead, which was damp with exertion. Her face, now that the flush of the struggle for survival was fading, was frighteningly pale. "You're safe now, Willow." His voice, and maybe his heart, too, was breaking. "You're safe."

Night was passing and Phoenix knew he needed to get Willow to bed. With any luck, a lot of rest would be all she'd need to recover. He carefully picked her up once more and headed back to Fort Zephyr, leaving Fuzzy to stand watch in the desert over her injured lupine friend, though Phoenix expected no trouble whatsoever. He'd heard what the bandit leader had said: they were all that remained of the group. Willow had killed every member of the first wave a year ago, and now she'd almost singlehandedly eliminated everyone in the second. There were none left to cause her any further difficulties. In due time, he would tell her all of this, and put her mind at ease, but not yet. She would have trouble understanding him, and the fewer mental struggles she had right now, the better. Her head lolled like a rag doll's, eyelids fluttering, and she gave a little humming sigh.

He tore his eyes from her tragic, beautiful face and looked forward. Even from this distance, the lamp's friendly glow pouring out the windows of Willow's cottage and onto the sand was like a lighthouse's beacon, drawing its wandering ships back home.

-.-.-.-

Instead of camping in the desert that night as he'd planned, Phoenix found himself in decidedly more comfortable environs as the moons rose high in the dark sky. He was tangled in a morass of familiar blankets and staring up at a familiar ceiling, his eyes running ceaselessly over the intersecting lines of the aged wooden beams holding up the roof.

He'd been rattled around in the Zoid battle, had had enough adrenaline pump through his blood to last him for weeks, and by all accounts, should have been exhausted. But he wasn't. Instead, he was awake and alert, keenly aware that these few prized moments in the night silence were simply borrowed time in the company of someone who had become very dear to him.

Still, someone else who was also very dear to him was out there somewhere right now, waiting.

Was Heinrich also awake? Could he see the moons out his window, too? Phoenix closed his eyes, willing his thoughts to the wind, to the moonlight, to carry his love to his brother across the countless miles.

And, perhaps, to carry it a little bit closer at hand, as well, in the time that they still had left.

"Phoenix?" Her voice across the room was no more than a small whisper in the velvet blackness, though it startled him a little bit anyway.

"Yes?"

"Thank you for coming back."

Warmth blossomed in his cheeks and in his chest. He smiled up at the ceiling, a smile no less heartfelt for the fact that no one could see it.


	15. ZAC 2061: Year 2 - Chapter 11

**ZAC 2061: YEAR TWO**  
 _ **Chapter 11**_

Their second parting was easier than the first. Willow had already shifted her expectations towards solitude, and it was easy to return to them when Phoenix, inevitably, took his leave once more. He did not go, however, until he'd performed some repairs on Zeke to jumpstart the recovery process, and until Willow was also starting to feel better. And when he did depart, it was with the same earnest green eyes and the same promises: to send his transporter friend, to be in touch when he could. She missed his lively company and sunrise facial marking and beautiful gap-toothed smile before the Helcat had even faded from view over the dunes, but she nevertheless took some comfort from knowing that things were proceeding as they ought. Phoenix needed his brother, and his brother certainly needed him.

The days in the little quiet ruin stretched on into emptiness in the heady bronze light of the sun once more. Willow was starting to feel like herself again, and not just because her head was better: there was a familiarity to these contours of loneliness, a place she could settle into comfortably, because she had already spent so much time here before.

Fort Zephyr had been badly damaged in the bandits' attack, and Willow saw the extent of the destruction for herself as she ambled slowly down streets and between buildings each late afternoon, while Zeke rested in the atrium.

Nothing of his old hangar remained except a wall and, surprisingly, the Gustav, which had some cosmetic damage around the cockpit but not much else. Several other nearby buildings had been leveled, but it wasn't until Willow discovered that much of her garden was now a series of small craters that she felt a palpable sense of loss. Those little plants she had worked so hard to nurture had thrived under her care, despite their unforgiving and unaccustomed environment, and she had never been able to ignore the obvious parallels between their difficult circumstances and her own.

A hardy apian berry bush stubbornly endured in a corner of the lot, and she gazed at it silently, a heaviness gathering about her heart.

She spent the hottest parts of each day resting with Zeke, who only recently had mustered the energy to assemble himself into a more comfortable prone position. Phoenix had situated him right beside the spring, since it would have been too difficult to maneuver him into his little room off of the atrium. Willow sat there with him often, perching on the stone column she and Dan had shared one night so long ago now, or leaning against the wolf's big paw. At night they looked through the broken ceiling, and though it did not offer the same expansive sky views as the desert, in this way they were able to continue observing the numberless constellations together.

She talked to him every day, and told him stories: things that had happened, things that might happen, things that would never happen. As always, he listened, and each day, bit by bit, his strength returned to him. Willow did not write in her memoirs anymore; her past, she knew, was safely locked away in her mind and her heart and the deep memory of the stars, and what was most important now was the present. Everything she still had - food stores, warm blankets, good books, and above all, Zeke's company and the remembrance of a friend - was a precious gift, and so her gratitude grew along with the Command Wolf's strength.

Willow sat with him one night as they quietly stargazed. Her mind wandered across time, and she found herself thinking about those strange moments towards the end of her second fight with the bandits, when the voices had come: Dan's voice, and the strange disembodied one, too. Had that just been a memory of Dan? Or had the mirage somehow transmitted his actual words to her?

"I wish you could tell me about him, Zeke," she said to her friend. "You probably have so many great stories you could share."

He vocalized softly in response, lowering his head down to her. She touched her palm to the side of his great jaw, and felt, as she often did now, deeply connected with him, though he was cool metal and not warm flesh. Such distinctions did not matter anymore.

"Remember when we first met?" she asked. "I had never seen a Zoid before, and then you showed up. I think my heart almost stopped!"

Zeke remembered.

"I wonder what you thought of me? Of my ship?" She trailed off, remembering the ominous silence inside the _Globally_ , the stiff muscles and cold night winds as she had struggled to bury her dead. She remembered the isolation and loneliness, too, although it didn't seem so unusual anymore, for it was how she had been living during much of the intervening two years.

And how much she had changed since the crash! Even in the time since Phoenix had left, she'd felt things shifting inside her no less certainly than if it had been the ground shifting beneath her feet. Her garden had been destroyed; her food stores, though still relatively plentiful, were shrinking day by day. She had withstood external threats to her life, and somehow, with the help of a big metal wolf and two Zoidians who cared about her, she had conquered the crushing power of solitude, as well. What was left now?

"I think it's time to go," she murmured without thinking, but once the words had left her lips, she knew they were true, knew they had been true for some time.

Zeke cocked his head slightly, inviting further explanation.

"You and me, Zeke," she said, her voice a little bit louder now as certainty and confidence came rushing in. "I think we're done here. We've waited a long time and nobody remembers my ship anymore. And...and now...I think it's time we find Dan."

Zeke tried to leap to his feet, but his legs were shaky beneath him.

"Not right now, friend. Not yet," she soothed, and he settled back down. "But I think we should start getting ready. We'll wait awhile so you can get your strength back up, and we'll see if Phoenix can get his friend to help. And if he can't, then...then we move on." She smiled up at him. "What do you think?"

He barked. There was a new level of energy humming beneath his sheetmetal. He was practically quivering with excitement.

Above them, the constellations were in different positions and the moons were in different phases than they had been that night they'd found Phoenix out in the desert. Everything changed: she and Zeke, Fort Zephyr, even this very planet. It was amazing to think that she, one lonely little Earthling, had made her mark on Zi, too, but she had. In a million little ways, it was a different place than it would have been had her ship not crashed onto its vast surface.

The stars above winked and sparkled, markers of times gone by. Without being able to explain it, Willow nevertheless suddenly understood: a chapter in her life was ending, and another was about to begin. And just as she had honored the conclusion of a past chapter, her time traveling across the heavens, with her memoirs, she needed to honor the closing of this one, too. This chapter had begun with the crash - and, as an idea came to her, she knew it was going to end with it, as well.

She stood. "When you're feeling up for it, Zeke, there's someplace I'd like to go. I'll need your help to find it."


	16. ZAC 2061: Year 2 - Chapter 12

**ZAC 2061: YEAR TWO**  
 _ **Chapter 12**_

Desert days and nights flowed by like water as Zeke recovered his strength. Willow remembered Phoenix's promise, and knew deep in her heart that he would be true to his word. Even if it took him some time, he would not fail her. And so she waited, and kept herself busy in order to pass the span of days stretching limitlessly out before her: she tended to Zeke, read her books, and sifted through her belongings, since many of them would ultimately have to be left behind when it was time for them to move on.

Her memoirs produced a particularly thorny choice. Their pages had grown so plentiful in number that they were the equivalent of several books. Amid all the other things she would need to bring with her, these, unfortunately, would be the least practical. And so, one afternoon, she carried the stacks down the wide boulevard to Fern's house, and placed them on the table there. Perhaps they would lend hope to some other solitary traveler who came through here, desperate and lonely. Or maybe they would just make for interesting reading for someone who needed to pass some time, who could know? It felt like the right choice: entrusting her recollections to a stranger, just as she had entrusted her life to strangers, too.

Despite all of these activities keeping her busy, however, she thought constantly of what was hopefully soon to come. The bizarre sort of suspended animation she now found herself in seemed interminable.

Luckily, in spite of her perceptions to the contrary, she ultimately didn't have long to wait. One afternoon, Zeke abruptly stopped in his tracks and picked his head up alertly.

"What's up, buddy?" Willow asked, looking around. They had been strolling slowly back to the cottage and atrium after her latest round of ministrations to a second attempt at a garden, using small quantities of seeds she'd discovered in a squat little shed on the southern part of Fort Zephyr. Farming progress was, if anything, even slower than it had been before, but Willow was determined to see the task through for as long as Fort Zephyr remained her home. Zeke often accompanied her to the garden, for he was well enough now to amble about at a gentle pace, and Willow figured it would help speed his recovery to get his joints and gears moving again.

Zeke growled now, staring north, up the main street and out into the desert. Willow squinted against the glare of sunlight, and could faintly make out a distant cloud of kicked up sand headed in their direction.

"Hope they're friendly," she muttered to herself. "Let's give them a proper greeting, huh pal?" The Command Wolf obligingly lowered his head and she climbed into the cockpit, then guided him with a light hand to the northern end of Fort Zephyr, where they awaited the approach of the new Zoid in silence.

It crested a dune momentarily, and Willow saw it was a Gustav, differently colored than her own but otherwise much like it, including a pair of trailers being towed along in back. These trailers, though, unlike hers, were laden with cargo. The snail made its slow but steady progress to meet them.

It pulled to a stop some two hundred feet away, still well outside of Zephyr's boundaries, and the canopy glass popped open. A lone woman in the cockpit stood and jumped out onto the sand in a practiced motion that all but confirmed years of Zoid piloting experience. She was taller than Willow, with a statuesque physique and royal blue hair that tumbled down past her hips like a waterfall. A small upturned blue crescent facial marking was underneath her left eye. She looked pointedly at Zeke's cockpit, and raised a hand in greeting.

Seeing no firearms on this newcomer, Willow felt it was safe enough to show herself. Zeke took a step forward and crouched, and Willow pressed the switch to swing up the canopy glass. She and the stranger silently regarded one another for a moment, then the woman spoke.

"I'm Hafen," she said in the Common Tongue. "A friend of mine asked me to stop here to meet you." Her accent wasn't at all like Phoenix's but nevertheless was crazily familiar. It took Willow only a moment to recognize it as Dan's.

Willow was wary, though not for any suspicious appearance or mannerism of the woman's. She had been lucky thus far in meeting two Zoidians who were kind and caring people; but she had also encountered ten more who had not been. Some caution here would not be remiss.

"I am expecting a visitor," Willow acknowledged, "but how can I be sure you're the person my friend was supposed to send here?"

Hafen, appearing amused but not surprised, nodded. "He said you'd be suspicious of strangers. So here is the proof I was told to provide." She cleared her throat preparatorily, extended one arm as though on stage before a vast audience, and theatrically announced, "Phoenix Standhaft is the most devastatingly attractive male to have ever existed, whether or not you recognize this fact, and you are amazingly fortunate to have ever been even momentarily graced by his presence." She gave a lopsided, wry grin after this impressive delivery, and Willow couldn't help but laugh.

She hopped out of Zeke's cockpit and stepped forward, hand extended. "I'm very pleased to meet you. I'm Willow, but you probably knew that already."

Hafen grinned again, shaking Willow's hand. "I did."

"Well, I truly can't thank you enough for coming."

Hafen waved this off. "No thanks necessary, because I'm happy to help. I owed Phoenix a favor, to say the least. I'd do anything for that rascal." She looked past Willow's shoulder at Fort Zephyr; Willow saw a range of expressions cross over her face, most notably surprise. "This is where you live?"

Willow nodded, unsure if Hafen was impressed or repulsed. "I know it's not much, but…"

Hafen laughed, clapping Willow on the shoulder. "Darling, you must have some story." She set off into Fort Zephyr, nodding at Zeke along the way with a "Hullo, wolfie," then turned back after a moment. "So are you going to show me around, or what?"

"O - okay!"

-.-.-.-

They ate outside that night, because Hafen, as she explained, didn't much like being cooped up indoors. "I never stay in one place for long," she said, throwing a mouthwatering array of fresh produce into a pot already bubbling over a portable stove, "and I feel way more at home in my trusty Gustav than in anybody's house. You never know when a building's just going to collapse on you, right? Kaboom!"

Willow, thinking back to how well her own Gustav had withstood the bandits' assault a couple of months prior, could certainly understand this viewpoint, though even the relatively roomy cockpit of the Gustav felt cramped in comparison to her comfy cottage.

The stars were just beginning to peek out in the violet sky overhead, and Willow smiled up at them, remembering all the times she and Phoenix had sat out here, too, just enjoying the view. It felt like just yesterday, while simultaneously feeling like a hundred years ago. Time seemed to shift like the constellations.

Hafen stirred the stew, sniffing at it. "Want noodles in as well?"

Willow hadn't had pasta in years. "Yes, please," she replied immediately. "That would be fantastic."

Hafen paused just long enough to give her an amused look before retreating the dozen feet back to her Gustav, which she'd parked just beyond the northern edge of Zephyr's wide thoroughfare, to retrieve more ingredients. "Phoenix did say you were always hungry," she called, rooting through a bag she kept in the cockpit's back seat.

"Oh he did, did he?" Willow chuckled to herself. That did sound like something he would say. "Did he tell you the kind of food I've been subsisting on, then? The kind of _so very boring_ food I've been subsisting on?"

"Honestly?" Hafen said, returning to sit in front of the stove once more. The flame's steady blue light illuminated her face as though it were a pale, grounded moon. "He didn't actually tell me all that much about you. Kind of hinted that you had a lot of secrets, but they were up to you to share with me." She grinned as she tore open a bag of noodles with her teeth and dumped them unceremoniously into the pot. "Or not, I mean, whatever you want. I'm a good listener, but if you don't feel like sharing, it's fine by me. We all have some secrets we like to keep, right?"

Oh, if only she knew.

"So then...what _did_ he tell you about me?" Willow asked, then hastily added, "Just so we're on the same page and stuff."

"You mean, so you know what you want to reveal or not?" Hafen winked at her.

"Well...not exactly," Willow stammered, flustered. Phoenix had said she was trustworthy, hadn't he? If Willow could trust him with her life, then couldn't she, in turn, trust Hafen, too? "Okay, yeah, kind of," she admitted finally, earning a hearty laugh from her guest.

"Understood." Hafen stirred the soup. The noodles were already beginning to soften. "Like I said, it really wasn't much. On his way north, he caught up with me at one of the trading outposts I frequent. Almost missed each other, actually, so we were lucky." A heavenly scent reached Willow's nostrils as Hafen stirred again, a scent the likes of which she hadn't experienced in years. She inhaled slowly, eyes closed. When she opened them once more, Hafen was eyeing her with amusement again.

"I wasn't kidding about the very boring food," Willow explained.

Hafen nodded. "Anyway, all Phoenix told me was that he has a friend, a very dear friend" - and here she looked at Willow pointedly, a look laden with things unsaid - "who needed help. You were a good person, all alone here, and...and I should use the Common Tongue with you, but shouldn't ask too many questions." She finished this last with another wink, then gave the soup another stir, bringing a ladleful up to her mouth to sample. She blew on it and took a sip. "Perfect." Another sly glance. "Hungry?"

"Good heavens, yes," Willow replied, not even bothering to stand on ceremony. "Thank you for being so generous with me. In spite of what Phoenix said, I realize I'm still a total stranger."

"I meet strangers every day, you know." Hafen ladled a large helping of soup into a bowl and passed it over to Willow, who accepted it gratefully. "And I'm a stranger to you, too, of course."

"Yes, but...I trust Phoenix," Willow said with a faraway smile. "So you feel more like...a friend whom I haven't yet gotten to know."

Hafen stopped blowing on her stew long enough to look somewhat touched. "Well, thank you. That's very kind of you to say."

Willow nodded and sampled her dinner. It was amazing beyond reckoning. She closed her eyes again. So warm! So rich! So many flavors!

"What _have_ you been eating here?!" Hafen exclaimed abruptly a few moments later. "It's just soup, and not even very good soup, at that!"

Willow laughed, opening her eyes again. "Food canned several years ago. No sugar. Little salt. A very, very small amount of vegetables I grew here myself. That's about it."

"A desert farmer. Impressive."

"Tell that to my struggling plants!" She sipped her soup again. "May I ask how you and Phoenix know each other? Did you two grow up together or something?"

"No, he's from southern Europa. I was born in Imperial territory, but grew up far north, outside the Republican capital. We actually met only a few years ago. I was passing through Schönberg - so-called breadbasket of the Empire, and his hometown - to pick up some wheat for another trader when…when..."

Willow recognized the shadow of pain passing over Hafen's face, her whole aspect changing in an instant. She had seen it on Dan's and Phoenix's faces, too. "The cataclysm," she said sadly, finishing the thought.

Hafen nodded wordlessly, heaving a sigh. "My wife was killed by a meteorite. Wasn't even that big, either. She just didn't get back into the Gustav in time." She looked up at Willow. "But you went through it too, right? They came out of the sky so fast. You barely had time to even recognize what you were looking at and what was happening before they started slamming into the ground all around you."

Had no Zoidian been spared the suffering wrought by the cataclysm?

"I'm so sorry," Willow murmured.

"I miss her every day. Every single day. And I'm grateful to be alive, of course, but I lost so much. It's hard not to be angry sometimes."

Willow was surprised. It had never even occurred to her to feel angry, in spite of all that she herself had lost. At whom or what would she have even felt anger? The deranged Sentinel whose gunfire had directly caused the crash? He hadn't been in his right mind. The Earth scientists? They had pursued their ends of landing a slice of humanity safely on the other side of the galaxy a bit too singlemindedly, perhaps, but they certainly hadn't been trying to harm anyone. Fate? The universe? It was all so abstract. So pointless.

Hafen was watching her intently. "Whom did you lose?"

"Everyone and everything I'd ever known," she said softly.

Hafen's eyebrows raised. "And you're not bitter about that?"

Willow shook her head. "No. Because...although I lost so much, at the same time I'm probably the luckiest person on Zi."

"Really?" Hafen was openly incredulous now. She stirred her soup. "Why do you say that?"

"Because I've learned, and been given, so much." Her eyes were shining, reflecting the light of the fire and the stars. "I'll always have others who care about me. I'm sad, of course, but...I'm not alone."

Hafen tilted her head, considering this, considering her dinner partner sitting on the other side of the pot of stew, which was still gently bubbling. "Well...it's okay to be sad. Life is always changing and there's much we're forced to leave behind." She smiled. "And if I may say, you seem wise beyond your years, love." She turned off the flame, and the desert around them immediately darkened.

Willow smiled back. "Thank you. I'm sorry I brought up such a painful subject for you, though."

"Not at all. It's not like we can just pretend it never happened. Anyway," she said, continuing with her story, "a couple hours after some of the smoke had cleared and the meteorites stopped falling, Phoenix found me. He was the first living person I saw. My leg was cut wide open" - she gestured to a large scar on her shin - "and he gave me first aid and brought me back to his house. He let me stay there for two whole weeks while I recovered. Fed me, gave me his dead mother's clothes to wear, everything." Her eyes were gazing somewhere far away. "I'll never forget his face when he first found me. Dirty, bloody, desperate, and the only parts of clean skin you could see were where tears had fallen down his cheeks. Lost both parents at once and heavens know how many other loved ones, hadn't even found out yet that his younger brother had survived, but there he was, taking care of and sharing his precious resources with a complete stranger."

Willow nodded. That sounded like something Phoenix would do. Dan, too. Probably the only good things to have come out of the mass devastation of the cataclysm were small acts of selflessness and unity like these.

"I'll always remember that generosity, for as long as I live," Hafen continued, her tone resolute. "That boy has a heart of gold."

"He does," Willow agreed, almost to herself. "He really does."

"Speaking of, and I know this isn't any of my business, but I have something I'm a bit curious about. It's not based on anything in particular Phoenix said, but…" Hafen eyed her beadily. "I kind of got the feeling the lad is hopelessly in love with you. Am I right?"

Willow flushed, her hand reaching automatically to tuck a lock of hair behind one ear. "Yeah, I kind of got that feeling, too."

"Hope you're not planning on breaking his heart, young lady," Hafen said scoldingly, though there was a twinkle in her vivid blue eyes. "I'll not have him getting hurt."

"I was honest with him," Willow assured her. "He's...very special to me too, you know. Always will be."

Evidently satisfied by this answer, Hafen set her empty bowl into the sand. "Want any more?"

Willow would have happily kept eating all that remained in the pot if her stomach had allowed her, but as it was, she was already well past the point of being overfull, not being accustomed to eating so much at once when she had been rationing her food so carefully for so long. "No, thank you. I haven't been this full in...in…" She trailed off, thinking of the _Globally_ , the food rationing there, too. "Ever?" She smiled. "Are you sure I can't interest you in some indoor sleeping arrangements? You've got your pick of any rundown, shelled building you want," she offered, sweeping her hand behind her to a darkened Fort Zephyr.

Hafen laughed. "I can see why Phoenix enjoyed your company so much. He told me that, too, you know," she added with a grin. "But thank you, I'm just fine out here under the stars. Tomorrow morning I need to hit the road again - such as it is - so we'll discuss then what you need from me. Sound good?"

Willow nodded. "Thank you so much, Hafen. I'm grateful to you."

"Don't mention it, love. See you in the morning." Hafen climbed into the Gustav's passenger seat in a graceful motion, waved once, and reclined the seat. Willow smiled to herself. She was doing just fine alone these days, but having company was still a treat to be savored.

She turned and headed back into the base, poking her head briefly into Zeke's room, where the big wolf was curled up comfortably for the night. "Sleep well, buddy," she said. A happy little snuffle came in response. She smiled again, and headed back across the street to her cottage, looking up at the stars until the eaves over her doorway blocked her view.

-.-.-.-

"Oi!"

Willow stirred and opened her eyes. The room was pale pink in the glow of the dawn.

"Wake up, little lass!"

This time, Willow sat up. So she hadn't been imagining the voice.

With a yawn, she opened her front door. Hafen was, of course, standing outside, looking impressively perky. "Well, good morning!" she said brightly.

"Morning," Willow mumbled, rubbing her eyes and stifling another yawn.

"Not much of an early riser, I see! Sorry, but it can't be helped. I need to head off soon. It's a long trip to my next stop, and I've got perishables aplenty on my trailer."

Willow nodded. "I understand."

"Any interest in breakfast with me? I've got some fresh bread and eggs, and you can tell me all about that message you need delivered."

Thoughts of food, and Dan, were enough to yank Willow fully into the land of the living. She nodded again, much more awake now. "Yes. Right. Be out in a minute."

"Lovely. I'll be over at the Gustav." Hafen gave her a little salute and headed up north the short way to the desert.

Willow rubbed her eyes again and went back inside to change and pull a brush through her sleep-mussed hair. When she rejoined Hafen a few minutes later, eggs were already sizzling on a pan over the portable stove, and Hafen was carving up thick slices from a dark-colored loaf of bread.

"Nice to see you up and about, sunshine," Hafen said. "Hope I didn't disrupt a lovely dream!"

Willow shook her head. "I don't mind." She tried not to too overtly stare at or sniff the frying eggs, but it was a lost cause. She had never had an egg before; what animal populations had once been aboard the _Globally_ had died out long before she'd been born.

Hafen plopped an egg onto a slab of bread, put this concoction on a plate, and handed it over to Willow. "Eat up. It may be the last fresh food you have for awhile!"

"Probably," Willow sighed. She inspected this curious new food. The yolk looked like a pretty little sun, wobbling happily there in the middle of its nest of bread. She took a tentative bite, and soon miserably failed at retaining a neutral expression.

"You're making me feel cruel for needing to leave," Hafen remarked with a chuckle. "Well, enjoy it. Nice that at least someone around here likes my cooking!"

"You're welcome back here anytime," Willow told her seriously, her mouth full. "Anytime."

"Well, I'm not so sure how much longer you'll be living here, since I understand that's part of what your message is about. So, tell me everything. What's the message, and to whom does it need to be delivered?"

Willow set aside her enticing breakfast for a moment, so as to concentrate the better on this monumentally important task. Her first contact with the outside world in two years was no trifling matter. "Well," she began. "This message is going to - to Dan. A Republican soldier."

Hafen regarded her patiently. "I know a lot of people, but I'm going to need a little bit more information than that, dear."

Willow faltered. "I - I don't actually know his last name. He was stationed on a base not too far from here...just a few hours' travel, I think." She tried to remember the direction he and Zeke had always come from when they had visited. She hadn't had any frame of reference for orientation when staying on the _Globally_ , but when she'd been here at Fort Zephyr...they'd always come from beyond the barracks, hadn't they? "It might be north of here?" she ventured uncertainly.

"Can you tell me his position in the military or what he looks like? Age? Any unique characteristics?"

"I don't know his exact age, either." This suddenly seemed a fruitless, foolish task. "He was a little older than me, and a scout in the army. Tall, but not as tall as you or Phoenix. Brown, spiky hair with a little spiky ponytail at the base of his neck." She pictured his face, which was wavering more than a little bit now in her mind from the passing of time, and she remembered when he had left her and Zeke behind, the tear that had run down his cheek and warped the marking there. "Oh! And a red rectangle on his cheek. Right here." She gestured to her own left cheek.

To Willow's enormous relief, Hafen was nodding now. "Yes, yes. Private Dan Flyheight. I know him. A bit, anyway. He was the one who escorted me and the Gustav back to his base for a delivery one time when a group of raiders decided going after my cargo within radar coverage of a military outpost was a good idea. Scout, as you said. Piloted a Command Wolf just like yours." Her eyes slid over Willow's shoulder to the atrium beyond, inside which Zeke was still resting.

"Actually, that _is_ his Command Wolf," Willow said meekly.

Hafen raised her eyebrows for a split second then laughed, a loud booming sound that seemed to brighten the quiet desert around them. "I hope someday you decide to write a book or something, love. I would be first in line to buy it."

Willow grinned. "Anyway, I'm really happy you know him. Are you able to get to his base?"

"Not just yet, but probably within a couple of weeks, a month at most. I can deliver your message and then bring you any reply when I head back out this way."

"Oh thank you so much, Hafen," Willow said, tears springing suddenly to her eyes. "You have no idea what this means to me."

"I'm beginning to get an inkling, actually. What would you like me to tell him? Or would you prefer to write it down? I have some wax you could seal a letter with if it needs to be private."

"No, that won't be necessary." Willow picked up her plate again, looking down at the cheerful little egg atop the bread. "I trust you."

Hafen smiled at her.

"Please tell him - tell him that I'm still here, that I'm okay, and Zeke is okay. He was hurt, but he's recovering. And tell him...that Zeke and I are ready to move on. And to please give us his instructions."

Hafen's blue eyes immediately darkened with concern. "Has someone tried to hurt you? Are you safe here?"

Willow looked at her food again. "A lot of people have tried to hurt me." She remembered Phoenix telling her about what he had heard the bandits say, about how there were none left in that particular gang. "I think I'm safe now, though. I owe Dan and Phoenix a lot, and Zeke even more. We're going to be okay."

"Is there some way I can help you?" Hafen asked. "Besides delivering this message, I mean. Do you need anything? Would it be better if you came with me?"

Willow smiled at such kindness. "No. Thank you. I need to stay here for now, so Dan knows where I am. We're doing alright here."

"I certainly do admire an independent woman," Hafen said. "Well, if you change your mind, you've got…" She looked to her left, where the sun was nudging itself over the horizon. "About twenty minutes."

"Then I think I would rather enjoy your non-Zoid company for those twenty minutes, than go frantically pack up my belongings," Willow replied with a grin.

"Understood. Then, when you're finished, would you be so kind as to help me pack up mine?"

There wasn't much to pack, as Hafen traveled light, but Willow recognized the gesture for what it was nevertheless. The sequential presence of the three Zoidians she had gotten to know had always been fleeting to one degree or another, but that simply made it all the sweeter while she still had it.

When all was ready, Hafen stood beside her Gustav's cockpit and smiled at Willow, when, suddenly overcome with emotion, she abruptly scooped the girl into a hug. "You take care of yourself now, love," she whispered into Willow's dark hair. "You're tough and brave and I know you can hang on out here just a little bit longer. I'm going to make sure Dan gets your message, and I'll be along again just as soon as I can to let you know what he says."

"Thank you, Hafen," Willow said, her voice wavering as she returned the unexpected embrace.

"I'm beginning to see what Phoenix saw in you." Hafen released her and climbed into the cockpit. She moved to lower the canopy, then stopped and looked over at Willow. "Oh. There was one other thing that he told me. He said that you were the kindest, most courageous person he had ever met. And that he will never forget you."

Willow could do nothing but smile through the tears gathered at the corners of her eyes. She had no words for how much she missed him.

"Willow the Heartbreaker, indeed," Hafen said under her breath, chuckling to herself and turning to face the console. The canopy glass lowered and the Gustav trundled off towards the east as Willow's shaking hand raised in farewell.


	17. ZAC 2061: Year 2 - Chapter 13

**ZAC 2061: YEAR TWO**  
 _ **Chapter 13**_

The light of countless stars shone almost imperceptibly over Zeke's white sheetmetal one night several weeks later as he stole silently over the desert dunes. The sun had set an hour ago, and dusk had given way to a darkness thick with mystery. Though Willow could see each approaching dune well enough as Zeke jogged along, the night nevertheless was so dense around them that it seemed as though they were lost in a black fog. The moons were nearly ready to perform their monthly vanishing, and were now only slender crescents, so it was mostly the stars' ashen light that guided the wolf onward.

Willow was not overly concerned with the poor visibility. It was so much the better for concealing Zeke's bright hide, and what's more, he seemed to know just where he was going. The ride was turning out to be rather peaceful, probably because it wasn't so very different from their nightly habit of stargazing.

Zeke's gait was smooth and tireless; there was no longer any evidence of what the bandits had done to him in his performance or appearance. Willow wondered if some deeper marker remained of that battle, if somewhere, in what could be considered his consciousness or memory, he carried those injuries still. How similar were Zoids to people, anyway? She herself bore no outward sign of that first bandit encounter so long ago now, but the damaging aftereffects still lingered, and probably would continue to do so for some time to come.

Something positive that had come of those battles and the long subsequent recoveries, however, was that she and Zeke were closer than ever before. It felt strange that she should have a bunch of vagabond thugs to thank for that, but it was true.

They traveled for about an hour and a half, with Zeke unerring in his direction, until finally, quite randomly it seemed, he slowed, stopped, then lay down, concluding these actions with a little woof.

Willow opened the canopy and climbed out, making an appraisal of their surroundings. There were low, rolling hills of sand visible all the way to the dim horizon, the contrasting light of the dunes' peaks and the dark of their shadowed slopes barely distinguishable in the stars' faint illumination. Besides Zeke's towering form, there was absolutely nothing else to be seen across this homogenous, empty landscape.

Willow furrowed her brow. "Are you sure this is the place?" She looked around again, just in case something, anything, had suddenly appeared to trigger her memory. "There's nothing here."

Zeke, having picked his head up to rest sphinx-like, gazed calmly at her, and she realized: that was the entire point. Dan had kept her safe by removing all remnants of the crash, and of her shipmates' graves; the utter lack of any recognizable marker of what had happened at this site was simply a testament to how well Dan and Zeke had carried out their task.

She looked down at the sand beneath her feet, gray in the faint light. For all she knew, she could be standing right now on the very place the _Globally 11_ had slammed into Zi that day so long ago now. "Sacred ground," she murmured, then she sighed, crossed her legs, and sat down. Zeke shifted a bit forward so that his left front paw was beside her, lightly resting against her right hip.

She placed her palms on her knees, straightened her back, dipped her chin slightly, and closed her eyes, relaxing her breathing and mind. As the minutes passed, this cultivated stillness allowed her memories to venture forward and out of the shadowed past. The wind whistled through her long hair, just as it had during those cold, lonely nights immediately after the crash. "I still remember it all so well, even though it was a long time ago," she told Zeke quietly. The moons had been in very nearly the same phase as they were now, silent sentinels that had rarely left her in all of the intervening time.

She brought to mind Cole, the only colonist she knew of to have survived the crash besides herself. She thought of the curly black hair framing a face that nearly always bore a grin; he had somehow always found much of their dull, spacefaring life incomparably entertaining. His wry observations and endless supply of sardonic commentary had made the innumerable days just a bit more amusing for those around him. "You've gotta laugh, or you'll cry," he'd declared in Origins class one day, and that had summed up much of his approach to life: if you couldn't change your circumstances, you could at least try to find some humor in them. Perhaps his dark humor was his version of that shield against fear and uncertainty that nearly everyone carried, whether they admitted to it or not.

"Will you tell me what Incognitus is like?"

She could still hear his voice in her mind now just as clearly as she'd heard it when she'd been cradling him in her arms as he bled to death on the bridge of the _Globally_. His was just one life of many that had been untimely snuffed out that day, and all of them were here.

She remembered his lifeless fingers entwined in her own as she had wept beside his grave. His hand had been substantial and strong, she recalled: in life, capable of piloting an impossibly titanic spaceship; in death, providing some final vestige of dim comfort. His flesh had still been faintly warm when she had buried him.

"I'll tell you," she said to him now; for though she didn't know precisely where, she knew his grave was somewhere nearby. He would hear.

She opened her eyes, and saw him sitting cross-legged there before her, a flock of gentle stars shimmering and hovering all around them both. He looked just as she remembered, locks of hair unfurling and then curling up again in the breeze, palms on his knees, trademark smile in place. But there was something in that smile beyond his usual detached amusement: she saw there a boundless, eternal loving kindness. At this sight, joy bloomed inside her like a sun climbing over the horizon. His dark eyes calmly held her gaze. Tears formed at the corners of her own, but she took a deep, steadying breath, and felt the lightness in her chest.

"It's beautiful here, Cole," she began. "This planet's real name is Zi, and I've lived here for two Earth years now. There's a lot I haven't yet seen, but I will someday. Right now, we're sitting in the desert." She paused, but Cole's encouraging smile urged her on. "The wind out here never stops singing in your ears. It always comes from the same direction, I've learned, so if you get lost, it's easy to orient yourself, even at night. It's like music in a way, and if you focus really hard, sometimes you can almost hear little snatches of words." She closed her eyes for a moment to listen, and when she opened them again, she saw Cole had closed his as well, his head tilted slightly to one side to better hear. "I wonder what it's saying sometimes," she said dreamily. "Everything on Zi, I think, has some kind of story to tell, a history locked inside."

Zeke put his chin down on his paws so that his head was now right beside her, and she touched his muzzle with her palm. Cole looked at Zeke, his eyes wandering over the Zoid's massive proportions, and Zeke, however improbable it seemed, was, she knew, looking right back at her friend. Seeing what she saw.

"Cole, this is Zeke, my best friend. He has stories of his own that he would tell you if he could. He's just one type of creature called a Zoid, and there are thousands and thousands of them living here on Zi." She stroked the cool white metal and Zeke let out a happy sigh. "I've spent almost my entire time since the crash living in the desert with Zeke. He's protected me from harm more than once, and kept me company when I was lonely. I would have been utterly lost without him." Cole nodded, regarding Zeke with new appreciation. "We love to stargaze together, right before bed. While you and I saw plenty of stars going by outside the windows of our ship, we never witnessed anything like this: a night sky seen from the surface of a planet. It's different, you know, and so beautiful. The moons are like friends and they change each night, just like we read that Earth's moon did. Sometimes they're full and so bright you can see just about anything around you, even though it's dark out. Sometimes they're delicate little crescents, like tonight. And sometimes, they disappear altogether, like they will tomorrow.

"And the stars! The stars change, too - they stay the same relative to each other, but as night passes, they move across the sky. I like to imagine pictures made from their constellations, and with each picture I remember a story from my life before." She pushed an errant lock of hair behind her ear. "I like to think that the stars are the keepers of our stories. They hold on to the past for us, so that it's never forgotten."

Cole looked up at the distant stars as he listened; Willow saw their light reflected in his liquid dark eyes. When he looked down at her again, she said quietly, "Thank you for what I know you did that day. I'm still alive because of you. And - and I wish you, and all the others, could have been here too, and started this new life with me." She longed to take his hand as she told him this, but it seemed as though it would cross some unspoken boundary, and so her palms remained on her knees. "I can only hope that...that I did right by all of you," she finished, voice breaking.

He did not need to speak; a deep wellspring of compassion was written across his peaceful young face, and in this, Willow was surprised to discover the forgiveness towards herself that she hadn't known she'd been looking for all this time.

"Thank you, Cole," she whispered, and the stars floating serenely around them flared slightly and then vanished, and her classmate was gone.

The desert was quiet and empty and dark once more, but Willow felt filled to bursting with something indescribable, something that was many things at once: awe, gratitude, beauty. And grace. Grace, most of all. Tears that had gone heretofore unnoticed had leaked down her cheeks, gathered at her jawline, and were drying now in the faint breeze. She touched one hand to her metallic companion, leaving it there, and closed her eyes again, letting her breath settle.

After a long time, she stood. "Thank you for taking me here, Zeke." He growled softly in response. She turned to the empty expanse of dim ground before them, where a gargantuan ship had once lain, where uneven mounds of sand had once marked graves, and bowed her head solemnly. "Rest well," she murmured.

She climbed into Zeke's cockpit and they set off for Fort Zephyr, her heart cradled in a deep peace, her loved ones' ghosts remaining behind to be bathed in the eternal light of the stars.


	18. ZAC 2062: Year 3 - Chapter 1

**ZAC 2062: YEAR THREE  
** _ **Chapter 1**_

 _My dearest Willow,_

 _I received your message this morning. I don't know how you managed to find, befriend, and recruit one of the most respected and trusted transporters in southern Europa, but then, you always were amazingly resourceful. Hafen will be bearing this letter back to you. I can't tell you how it felt to have heard from you after these two long years. My hand is still shaking as I write this at midnight, many hours after her arrival._

 _I was overjoyed to hear from you, and to hear that you and Zeke are doing well. I knew you were strong enough to handle whatever life was going to throw at you, just as you always have been, and I knew you would take good care of my best friend. I must have asked poor Hafen dozens of questions about you, but there was little she could tell me. It seems you have been keeping your secrets still, so I don't know what it's been like for you. I hope with all my heart that you have been thriving. Not a day has gone by that I haven't thought of you and worried about you, and many times I nearly headed over to Fort Zephyr myself, but I didn't want to put you in danger, or make things worse. My superiors kept a close eye on me for a long time after you and I parted, and I think only now are they beginning to relax their vigilance._

 _Hafen says she will be able to bring my letter to you within two weeks of her departure from my base. I am going to make arrangements tomorrow for a short leave so that I can meet up with you in a month's time. I own a cottage in a quiet little farming village far to the northeast of Fort Zephyr to stay in when I'm on break from deployment. That village is called the Wind Colony and I think you will like it there. Hafen can give you the coordinates to input into Zeke's travel computer. Please ask for Leon when you arrive and show him this letter. He is my best friend, so feel free to tell him as much or as little as you wish. He can be trusted. He will also help you get settled and look out for you until my return._

 _Willow, I realize much may have changed for you in the last two years. Please know that my heart has pined for you every single moment since I left you, and you were not, and never will be, forgotten. I still love you, and miss your bright smile and gentle hands and valiant heart. Should my affections no longer be returned, I will understand, but I will always care for you, no matter what._

 _I hope to see you soon. Please say hello to Zeke for me._

 _Yours always,  
_ _Dan Flyheight_

"I'll just leave you be for a bit, shall I?" This voice, seemingly coming from very far away, was kind. "I'll have lunch waiting by the Gustav for when you're ready."

Willow nodded and watched Hafen go. She could not speak. Her limbs trembled, and these words written in a small, precise hand were swimming before her, their forms warped from the tears in her eyes. As she sank dizzily to the ground beside Zeke, he curled his head and neck in a protective semicircle around her, tender vocalizations rumbling softly from low in his throat.

She brushed a tear from her cheek and swallowed. "He remembered." Her shaking hand found the soothing, smooth metal of Zeke's jaw. "Of course he remembered."


	19. ZAC 2062: Year 3 - Chapter 2

**ZAC 2062: YEAR THREE  
** _ **Chapter 2**_

Sunlight spilled orange through Zeke's canopy glass, bathing the cockpit in warmth. Willow's eyes slid from his console map readout, where a glowing blue dot drew ever nearer, to a tall hill just ahead that they would be cresting momentarily after the past half hour's steady upward climb onto higher ground.

"This should be it," she murmured, and Zeke growled his agreement.

The rocky desert around them belied all of the incredible landscapes Willow had seen during their two days' journeying. Between Fort Zephyr and here, they had traversed a small mountain range, dozed in the shade of breathtaking rock formations, and wandered through enchanting, verdant meadows strewn with wildflowers. Willow had never seen anything but desert since arriving on Zi, and so with each encounter of these new vistas, her sense of awe and wonder at the indescribable beauty of her adopted planet grew. Had the Earth scientists possessed even the slightest premonition of the riches to be found here?

Zeke ascended to the hill's summit and Willow dazedly drank in the bucolic scene of the settlement in the valley oasis far below them. Tidy farm fields to the west gave way to a magnificent oval lake to the east, while the northernmost edges were ringed by evergreen forests and a wide plateau only slightly lower in elevation than the one they were now standing on. In every quadrant, windmills and humble clay dwellings could be seen, and even here, a ceaseless westerly desert breeze whistled around Zeke's legs, gently bending the countless trees below.

Willow was captivated at once. "So this is the Wind Colony," she said, and somehow, knowledge that the wind was a constant presence here too made her feel just a little bit less homesick for Fort Zephyr, and gave her the courage to go forward into the unknown.

-.-.-.-

Zeke picked his way carefully through rocky slopes and thick forests down into the valley, and once there, they were traveling for only a moment before Willow was hailed by a farmer pulling a wagon piled high with straw. The man spoke words she did not understand, and so she raised the canopy glass to respond. "I'm sorry, but I can't speak Helic," she told him in the Common Tongue, and he immediately nodded in comprehension.

"Greetings, traveler," he said now, in an accent that was thick and warm and familiar to Willow, for having known Dan and Hafen. "What brings you to our colony?"

"I'm looking for Leon, please," she replied. Dan's letter was tucked safely into her jacket.

The man nodded again. "See that windmill over there? The tallest one? Next door is his church. He should be there now."

"Thank you, sir." Willow closed the canopy once more and urged Zeke onward, taking care not to harm any of their surroundings with his considerable bulk. These dirt roads were meant for carts, not Zoids.

Charming scenery, fruitful fields, and many people hard at work passed by as Zeke entered the town. Many pairs of eyes turned to observe their progress, and Willow realized it was probably very infrequent for a Zoid to be in the village proper. Had she already violated some rule of decorum of which she hadn't been aware? Suppose no one would like her here?

Zeke's footsteps, even at such a slow pace and with his paws placed so carefully, were booming in the quiet around them, where there was little to hear besides friendly conversations between neighbors and the sighing wind. She saw a man clad in dark gray with white piping about the chest and shoulders and a low, flat hat step lopsidedly out of the spired adobe building that the farmer had indicated was a church, and surmised that this must be Dan's friend.

She brought Zeke to a halt, and he lowered his head, opening the canopy again. Clutching Dan's letter in her hand, she climbed out, avoiding the awkwardness of not understanding the local language by taking the initiative of addressing him first.

"Hello," she said nervously in the Common Tongue. "Are you Leon?"

"I am," he replied, taking a step toward her. She noted a small unevenness in his gait. The lenses of his round spectacles flashed in the sunlight.

"P-please, Leon sir," she stammered. "I have a letter here from a friend of yours, D-Dan Flyheight. He said you could help me."

Leon's face, heretofore neutral and slightly guarded, brightened immediately. "Yes, yes! You must be Willow!" She nodded, swallowing hard, scarcely daring believe her luck. "Welcome! Dan told me to expect you. And Zeke! Zeke, is that you, old boy?"

Zeke barked happily, obediently remaining in position but nudging his nose forward in greeting.

"I - I didn't know that Dan had told you I would be coming," Willow said, quite overcome.

"I received his letter just last week," Leon explained. "I'm glad you and Zeke arrived safely! Please, won't you come inside to rest a moment after your journey? Would you like some water?"

"That would be wonderful." She turned to her faithful friend. "I'll be right back, buddy," she told him, and he responded with a tiny woof.

The sanctuary of the church was cool and dark, a welcome respite from the early afternoon sun, and Willow followed Leon into his small, humble office off to one side. He gestured for her to be seated opposite him at his desk, and even though she had been sitting for hours in Zeke's cockpit, she was exhausted and was glad to be off her feet again.

"Dan and I served in the army together," Leon said without preamble, pouring water out of a pitcher into a glass he retrieved from a nearby bookcase and handing it to Willow. "He saved my life during a skirmish against the Empire. Such experiences have a way of, shall we say, changing one's outlook on life," he added wryly, gesturing out to the sanctuary.

"You were badly hurt," Willow said, realization dawning as she recalled his slightly lopsided gait.

"Yes. A temporary retirement from the way of the warrior." He smiled then. "I like to think of it as an experience that pointed me instead towards what I was meant to be doing. I'm not especially cut out for killing people, it would seem. I plan to rejoin the army when my leg is healed, but this time as a medic since I have some background in that field. I hope I'll be stationed with Dan again. He's like a brother to me."

Bandits notwithstanding, Willow now believed that the three people she happened to have gotten to know on Zi were also its three kindest. "Then I hope you recover soon," she said sincerely. "The world needs more helpers, I think."

Leon peered curiously at her through his spectacles. "Well, thank you. Very nice of you to say." He interlaced his fingers and gave her an encouraging smile. "So. I understand you've had a long journey here."

"Yes," Willow said, not wishing to elaborate further for the time being.

"Dan told me to set you up in his house until he's able to come back on leave. He seemed very particular that you and Zeke should be provisioned with everything you need." Willow nodded. "May I ask how you and Dan know each other? He's never mentioned you before, but it seems you two are very close. And you have his Zoid, which was reported as missing to the Republican military brass some time ago." Noting Willow's stricken expression, he hastily continued, "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have pried. It's really none of my business. My curiosity got the better of me."

Dan had specifically stated that she could tell Leon as much or as little as she wished. Perhaps a version of the truth would suffice for now, she reasoned.

"Well…" Willow thought for a moment on how best to word what she wanted to say. "We met by chance a couple of years ago. He helped me through a very difficult time in my life, and we bonded over that." Leon seemed to accept this explanation, she was relieved to note.

"I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable," he said apologetically. "Any friend of Dan's is a friend of mine. If you're ready, I can take you over to his house after we've met with the elder to introduce you." Willow blinked stupidly at him, so he added, "It's the tradition here, for the newcomer to meet our village elder and be formally welcomed into the colony."

"Okay. I guess I'm as ready as I'll ever be, then." She drained the last of her water and followed Leon into the blinding sunlight once more.

-.-.-.-

There was a wide, unutilized open space beside Dan's cottage, a neglected yard of sorts, and it was here that Willow and Zeke arranged themselves. Although Leon had informed her that Zoids belonging to visitors and residents typically stayed in the hangar on the northern end of the Wind Colony, he hadn't objected when Willow had asked if she could keep Zeke on Dan's property. "I'll be very careful with him," she'd assured Leon. "I just...I feel a lot better when he's near me." Leon, though he obviously found such an arrangement peculiar, simply nodded his assent.

The night was blissfully clear, and a magnificent span of stars twinkled above. If she looked carefully, the Milky Way was visible as a wash of faint light arcing gracefully overhead. Somewhere, far across the galaxy, was Earth, or the place Earth had once been.

It was probably well past time for Willow to turn in to bed, but she didn't want to head inside just yet. Though Fort Zephyr was a great distance away, the stars' patterns and constellations here in the Wind Colony were still recognizable. It was reassuring to know that she could come this far and still be able to find the familiar stellar forms and markers that she had come to know so well. Everything else about this place was foreign to her, and she was surprised by how homesick she felt for Fort Zephyr, for had that little ruin ever truly been home to her?

She had spent only a minimal amount of time in Dan's house, with Leon showing her where she could find whatever she might need, before stepping back outside to be near Zeke as they awaited nightfall. From her cursory examination of the interior, she saw the place was simple and mostly neat, though somewhat impersonal, revealing little about its occasional inhabitant. The outside property was similar; its open spaces more of a blank canvas awaiting an artist's hand than someone's settled home. She had hoped to feel immediately at ease here, surrounded as she was by Dan's belongings, but it felt just as alien as Fort Zephyr once had: a place, like here, where she had stepped in to the interrupted continuity of someone else's life.

"Maybe I just need to give it a chance," she murmured to Zeke, who was lying down beside her and gazing upwards. "I didn't feel comfortable in Fort Zephyr in the beginning, either. And everyone here seems...a bit distant, but very kind." A thought occurred to her just then. "You've been here many times before, haven't you?"

Zeke vocalized softly and nudged her shoulder with his nose, lightly as could be.

"Okay, okay, I get it," she said with a small laugh. "I'll do my best. For you. And for Dan, too." She shivered with anxious anticipation. Would she really be seeing him again soon, after all this time? It seemed too amazing to be true.

"Good evening," came a voice from beyond the low stone fence running along the front of the property. Willow looked over, and there was Leon, holding his wide-brimmed hat in his hands.

"Hello," she said, standing and walking over to him as Zeke whuffled a greeting.

"I just wanted to come by and make sure you were settled in."

"I'm about as settled as I can be," Willow said. "I barely brought anything with me here."

"Is there anything I can get you or help you with before I turn in for the night?" She couldn't see his eyes beyond the pale reflections of his glasses, but his expression and voice were kind, and slightly timid, too.

"I think we should be okay here. Thank you."

At this use of the word "we," he looked past her to Zeke, who, no longer interested in their conversation, had returned to looking at the sky. "What's he doing?" Leon asked curiously.

Willow smiled. "Stargazing." She reached over the fence to touch his hand briefly. "Good night, Leon."

"Good night," he echoed, bewildered, then he put his hat on his head and shuffled off into the quiet evening.


	20. ZAC 2062: Year 3 - Chapter 3

**ZAC 2062: YEAR THREE  
** ** _Chapter 3_**

Peaceful days passed in the Wind Colony. Willow explored the farming community, mostly alone and on foot, since Zeke was simply too big to maneuver easily down its many narrow streets and paths. Leon was proving to be very solicitous and caring indeed, although Willow sensed that he was holding himself distant somehow. He attended to her frequently throughout the day, and conversed readily with her, but there was clearly much he wasn't asking or saying. She wondered if he weren't perhaps trying a bit too hard to respect Dan's wishes of not badgering her for information.

Willow was wrapped up in a blanket to ward off the wind's chill and sitting on Zeke's paw as dusk slowly gave way to darkness on their fifth night in the colony. Willow had run out of things to do - most of her books had had to be left behind in Fort Zephyr - and so she figured she may as well sit outside with her dear friend and wait for night to fall.

A bird twittered in a tree somewhere nearby, undoubtedly bedding down for the night, and Willow turned her head to it, listening. "I wonder what it looks like?" she asked Zeke. "Earth had so many different kinds of birds. I never saw any in real life, of course, but I've seen pictures. They were so beautiful! I think the quetzal was my favorite. It had feathers that were the prettiest green you've ever seen in your life." She pointed to a bush, hunched dimly across the yard. "Picture that color green, multiplied and saturated almost infinitely."

Zeke cocked his head, trying to imagine such a hue.

"Wildlife around here must be so boring for you," she said. "You've seen it all already. I could live to be three hundred years old and I think I would still be discovering things about this planet that everybody else knew already." She thought of how interesting and unique she had found the trees in the Wind Colony; she had never seen one in person before. And the lake, oh the lake! How was it even possible that so much water could be in one place? She'd never seen a body of water any larger than the spring in the atrium at Fort Zephyr, and that itself had been a revelation when she'd first arrived.

The bird whistled again, and an echoing response came to it from further down the road. Zeke stiffened, swinging his head around in the direction of the second bird's call.

"What's up, buddy? Is it a special bird?"

The bird in the tree called again, and again it received a response that closely mimicked its sound. Zeke stood, head up and alert, gazing down the road, and Willow climbed off of his foot. She could practically feel the electricity crackling frenetically beneath his sheetmetal. "It's...it's not a bird, is it..." she whispered.

A figure appeared from the darkness at the gate in the stone fence. Faded twilight revealed brown spiky hair and a red cheek marking. Zeke barked loudly enough to wake the dead and bounded over immediately.

"Zeke! It really is you!" came a voice Willow had not heard in over two years. She stared as the figure leapt clean over the gate and caressed whatever part of Zeke's muzzle was within reach - the same exact way she had done so many times before. Her heart hammered in her ribcage like a stampeding Zoid.

The moons had risen and the stars were beginning to peek out of their dark cloak, and in this pale light she saw, when at last the figure turned towards her, gentle dark eyes, a vision from both her past and her future.

"Willow," Dan said reverently. It was a question, and a statement, and a promise.

Her breath lodged in her throat, and then, her blanket dropped to the ground and forgotten, she was running, running into that familiar embrace. He caught her in his arms and swung her through the air, and then held her close and stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head. "You made it," he said softly, voice breaking. "I was so worried." He brushed away the tears that had begun to silently stream down his cheeks. "I'm here now. I'm here. I'll never leave you like that again."

And she wept, too, for the darkness of years of solitude had now at last been dispelled, and the radiance of uncountable brilliant stars was surging in her chest, and all of this light was much too beautiful for her to contain inside any longer.


	21. ZAC 2065: Year 6 - Epilogue

**ZAC 2065: YEAR SIX  
** _ **Epilogue**_

Willow hummed idly to herself as she walked home one warm evening. The sun had set some time ago, though a few tendrils of clouds low on the western horizon were still aflame in a dazzling gold. Crickets sang in the fields on either side of her as her feet followed a familiar dirt path.

She tore open the envelope she'd picked up at the general store's mail counter earlier that afternoon, accidentally leaving a small smudge of grease behind on the thin paper. It had taken until now for her to even have the time to read its contents. She worked hard at her job as the only mechanic in the Wind Colony, repairing both vehicles and Zoids, but it was a job she enjoyed. She especially loved tending to the Zoids, taking them in battered and broken, and sending them on their way again glossy and whole, their spinning gears purring.

As she unfolded the letter - which was written in Guylic, one of two new languages she had largely mastered since moving here - her brown eyes scanned swiftly to the bottom, where the name she read there sent a bolt of joy dancing through her.

Phoenix, Heinrich, and Fuzzy were all doing well; the two brothers worked together operating a fruit farm which they'd purchased a day's journey south of her - "though we _don't_ grow many apian berries," Phoenix was at pains to add. The farm, like the Wind Colony, was in Republican territory. He hoped Willow could meet his fiancée - perhaps she and Dan could pay them all a visit sometime soon? "Áthas is very nearly as beautiful as an Earth princess I met once," the letter confided in Phoenix's cramped, messy handwriting, "and she forever makes me smile. Somehow, I love her more and more every day. With her and my brother and Fuzzy with me, what more could I possibly ask for out of life, besides catching up with a wingless savior I once knew?"

Willow held the letter close to her chest, smiling up into the lilac twilight. A smattering of stars was visible above, twinkling cheerfully at her. She had never known such happiness.

When her gaze leveled forward once again, she was startled to notice a towering white form beside her and Dan's little adobe house. Could it be?

"Zeke?" she called, incredulous.

The massive creature turned immediately in her direction and let out a joyous bark.

"Zeke!" she cried, running the remaining few hundred feet into the yard. "What are you doing here? Dan's not supposed to be back on leave for another month! Unless…"

Dan emerged from the front doorway just then. "I wanted to surprise you," he said shyly, though there was no hiding the huge grin on his face.

Willow laughed, her happiness complete. "And you have succeeded! What's the occasion?"

Having closed the short distance between them, Dan kissed her forehead, both cheeks, then softly on her lips, just as he always did, then took her hands in his. "Well, I received a promotion," he said.

"Oh darling, how wonderful! Congratulations!"

He was positively beaming. "You are now standing before Captain Dan Flyheight," he said.

Willow immediately clapped her heels together and snapped a salute. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Captain Flyheight! Sir!"

"The pleasure is all mine," he said gallantly as he took her saluting hand and kissed it. "Anyway, the best part about it is that I'll be able to come home more often! More vacation time, and I'll be able to do some of my work off-base here. Oh, and Leon is going to be embedded with my unit as a medic, as well!"

"Perfect! Did you hear that, Zeke? You won't be so horribly neglected now, because you'll have me around a lot more to spoil you, just like the old days!"

Zeke barked excitedly and spun in a gleeful circle, nearly knocking over a tree.

Dan laughed for a moment at his Zoid's antics, then his face suddenly grew solemn as he turned back to Willow. "I was actually wondering if I could talk to you about something, love."

"Right now? Perhaps I ought to wash up first? I can't imagine I'm looking or smelling especially delightful at the moment." She grinned, knowing there was very likely at least one smudge of grease on her forehead. "It's been an exhausting day. Some of us actually work, you know, instead of lazing around some old military base all day." She winked.

Dan laughed and reached forward to tenderly tuck a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. "You know I always think you're beautiful," he said.

"Well, when you put it that way..." Willow smiled at him and settled onto the nearby stone fence. Zeke immediately plopped down right beside them as though he had been invited into the conversation, too. "What's on your mind?"

"I was wondering…" He scratched the back of his neck, seemingly at a loss for words, and Willow noted curiously his apparent nervousness. "I was wondering if you ever felt like - like this was home to you."

"Zi?"

"Well, yes, but the Wind Colony, too." He gestured to the darkened house behind him. "Here."

Willow thought for a long moment; this was not a question she had considered in some time. As she had adjusted to her life in the Wind Colony, meeting and spending time with friends, working at her job, even traveling sometimes, too, the many reflections that had occupied her mind in times past had naturally given way to thoughts simply of the day-to-day.

When she considered Dan's question, though, the answer became clear to her: she loved it here, loved the Wind Colony and Zi itself. She was happy, and fulfilled in a way she perhaps never had been before, not even when she'd been on the _Globally_ with her multitudinous family members.

Was this home? She didn't know, probably because she had never felt like she'd belonged to any particular place; she had been born a wanderer of the stars. But did any of that matter? Did she need that specific feeling of rootedness in order to find the many joys that life offered her?

"Home…" she whispered. Dan was silently watching her. "I don't know if this is home," she said, pointing to the ground she stood on. He looked crestfallen, so she continued: "But I don't know if that's home anymore, either," and she pointed to the heavens, where the stars were now greater in number than they had been even just a few short minutes ago.

"Then where?" he asked.

She smiled at him. "Here," she said, putting her hand over her heart. "And here." She moved her other hand over his heart, which she could feel beating strongly through the heavy fabric of his uniform. "Being loved, and having people who care about me, makes anyplace home."

He covered her hand, still lightly resting against his chest, with his palm. "I understand." His voice was husky. "Thank you, Willow."

She cocked her head. "What are you thanking me for?"

"For...for taking care of Zeke for so long. For keeping your faith in me during the eternity we were apart. For being so unbelievably brave. For being who you are. For everything, really." He ran his other hand through his hair, then let it hang loosely at his side. "There's one other thing I'd like to ask, if you can spare me just a little bit more time."

"Of course," she replied with a smile. Time was of no consequence now, when he was by her side.

Zeke leaned in close as Dan reached into his pocket and extracted a small, delicate paintbrush and a tiny pot of red paint. Still holding her hand against his chest, he extended his other hand out to her, presenting the two objects to her. She looked at them, not comprehending, then up at him.

"Willow-from-Earth," he said. There was so much love in those three words, in his voice. "Will you marry me?"

Tears immediately sprang to her eyes, despite her bewilderment. "Yes!" she cried. "A thousand times, yes!" She leapt into his arms and he hugged her close like he would never let go. Zeke, apparently unable to contain himself, let loose an exuberant howl to the moons. Willow laughed into Dan's shirt, then whispered, "I - I've waited so long to hear you say those words. But...what's the paint for? I don't understand."

Dan released her and wiped a tear from his eye, chuckling. "You know, I'd somehow forgotten, just for a moment, that you're not exactly from around here. I don't know how you weird Earthlings proposed, but here on Zi…" He pointed to his facial marking, and Willow suddenly understood. She kissed his cheek and the red streak there, and embraced him again, laughing and crying and filled to bursting with gratitude for what her life had become, and there they remained for a very long time, Zeke watching proudly over his two pilots.

The ceaseless desert wind whispered its quiet verses in the trees around them. Far above, the stars shimmered bravely across the infinite heavens, their light shining in both solemn remembrance of a sacred past, and silent hope for a future yet to come.

-.-.-.-

* * *

 **Author's Note:** My eternal gratitude once again to jdoug4118 for giving me the idea to write this sequel and make the series into a trilogy. Writing "Remain" was an incredible endeavor for me - a person who typically struggles to meet minimum word counts - and was sheer joy. More often than not, the dialogue and action were just pouring out of me as though I were merely the typist for some cosmic author. I'm insanely proud of how it turned out.  
My heartfelt thanks for granting this story your precious time and attention, especially if you took a moment to leave a review. The trilogy concludes in "Heavensward," and there are several side projects either published or in the works.


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